1

CO-CREATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE: EXPLORING CREATIVITY

IN THE GLOBAL NORTH AND SOUTH

Juliet Carpenter and Christina Horvath (eds)

2
Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the authors who have contributed to this volume, together with the
partners in the Co-Creation project, and the participants of the workshops and creative activities that
have fed into our exploration of Co-Creation over the last four years. We hope that this book will be
the starting point for further experiments with Co-Creation in the future.

Thanks are also due to the editorial team at Policy Press for their support in producing this book, and
to Rose Norman for her assistance in proofreading.

This volume has received funding from the University of Bath and from the European Union’s RISE
Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant
agreement No 734770.

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 CO-CREATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE: EXPLORING CREATIVITY
IN THE GLOBAL NORTH AND SOUTH

Chapter outline

INTRODUCTION
1. Conceptualising Co-Creation as a methodology
Christina Horvath (University of Bath) and Juliet Carpenter (Oxford Brookes University)

PART I: CO-CREATION IN THEORY

2. Co-Creation and the state in a global context

Sue Brownill and Oscar Natividad Puig (Oxford Brookes University)

3. Fostering an artistic citizenship. How Co-Creation can awaken civil imagination

María José Pantoja Peschard (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)

4. Global North-South tensions and hierarchies in international Co-Creation projects

José Luis Gázquez Iglesias (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)

5. Doing politics in times of uncertainty: Co-Creation, agency and the ontology of the city

Niccolò Milanese (Alternatives Européennes, Paris and Institut für die Wissenschaften vom
Menschen, Vienna)

6. Theorising the materiality of Co-Creation as a knowledge practice: exploring onto-epistemological

questions
Annaleise Depper (University of Oxford and University of Bath, UK) and Simone Fullagar
(Griffith University, Australia and University of Bath, UK)

7. Does space matter? Positioning built environments for Co-Creation in Mexico City
Pamela Ileana Castro Suarez and Hector Quiroz Rothe (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México)

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8. Co-Creation, social capital and advocacy: The case of the Neighbourhood Improvement
Programme in Mexico City

Karla Valverde Viesca and Dianell Pacheco Gordillo (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México)

PART II: CO-CREATION IN PRACTICE

9. A top-down experiment of Co-Creation in Greater Paris

Ségolène Pruvot (Alternatives Européennes, Paris)

10. Literary festivals as Co-Creation? Challenging territorial stigmatisation in alternative ways

Christina Horvath (University of Bath)

11. When Co-Creation meets Art for Social Change: The Street Beats Band
Juliet Carpenter (Oxford Brookes University)

12. Co-Creation and social transformation: A tough issue for research

Jim Segers (City Mine(d), Brussels/London)

13. We Can…Co-creating knowledge and products with local communities, for positive social change
Martha King, Melissa Mean and Roz Stewart-Hall (Knowle West Media Centre, Bristol)

14. Innovative collaborative policy development: Casa Fluminense – a common house for
addressing Rio de Janeiro’s public agenda challenges

Inés Álvarez-Gortari, Vitor Mihessen (Casa Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and Ben
Spencer (Oxford Brookes University, UK)

15. Working the hyphens of artist-academic-stakeholder in Co-Creation: A hopeful rendering of a

community organisation and an organic intellectual
Bryan C Clift (University of Bath, UK), Maria Sarah da Silva Telles (Pontifical Catholic
University, Rio de Janeiro) and Itamar Silva (Grupo ECO, Rio de Janeiro)

16. Artist-researcher collaborations in Co-Creation: Redesigning favela tourism around graffiti

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 Leandro Rodrigues aka Tick (Tabajaras, Rio de Janeiro) and Christina Horvath (University of
Bath)

17. Capturing the impact of Co-Creation: Co-Creating poetry and street art in Iztapalapa, Mexico
City
Joanne Davies, Eliana Osorio Saez, Andres Sandoval-Hernandez and Christina Horvath
(University of Bath)

CONCLUSION
18. Conclusion: What can we learn from Co-Creation and what are the implications?
Christina Horvath (University of Bath) and Juliet Carpenter (Oxford Brookes University)

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ONE

Introduction: Conceptualising Co-Creation as a methodology

Christina Horvath and Juliet Carpenter

Introduction

Since the neoliberal turn of the 1980s and the globalisation of trade and information flows a decade
later, cities around the world have been faced with the increasingly complex societal challenges of
‘spatial segregation, separation and exclusion’ (Bauman, 1998: 3). The protection of private property
rights and the reduction of state expenditure have resulted in a radical polarisation of the distribution
of wealth and power. At the same time, the expansion of the urban lifestyle has turned cities into
commodities for those with money, encouraging the formation of market niches in consumer habits
and cultural forms (Harvey, 2012: 14). As a result, we are living in increasingly fragmented, conflict-
prone cities with privatised public spaces, increasing surveillance and growing divides between gated
communities and vulnerable neighbourhoods. While new hierarchies founded on global mobility have
sharpened the divide between the extraterritorial elites and the localised groups ever more affected
by urban marginalisation, close-knit communities and ideals of urban identity, belonging, and
citizenship have become increasingly harder to sustain.

Despite the growing number of studies exploring urban disadvantage and territorial stigmatisation,
knowledge generation about processes of marginalisation remains largely the remit of academic
research, considered as the key source of understanding and insight to enhance societal awareness.
Yet it has been increasingly recognised that alternative approaches to producing knowledge can lead
to much greater societal benefits. According to Lupton and Dyson (2015) ‘knowledge of the social
world must be deeper and stronger if it is co-produced with actors in that world; research is more
likely to effect change if it is owned by people who have a capacity to effect change’. To respond to a
growing need for co-produced knowledge, this book proposes to challenge territorial marginalisation
by inviting to the dialogue partners who rarely participate in collaborative knowledge practices (Banks
et al, 2018), namely non-academic collaborators from the civil society sector and communities
carrying knowledges that have previously been passed over, and outside the Global North, increasingly
validated as examples of the ‘epistemologies of the South’ (Santos, 2018).

This is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, civil society groups matter today because they are
situated at the forefront of the creation of a new public sphere. The turn to civil society since the
1980s (Yúdice, 2003; 2009) was a consequence of neoliberal trade liberalisation, privatisation and the
reduction of state-subsidised services including health care and education. Since institutionalised
political parties were unable to counter austerity and structural adjustment policies, the most
innovative actors in setting agendas for social justice moved to grassroots movements, local
associations, and national and international NGOs. These civil society actors have opened up new
forms of ‘progressive struggle in which culture is a crucial arena’ (Yúdice, 2003: 88), turning to areas
of social life abandoned by the neoliberal state and setting a new agenda for organising civil society.
These actors are therefore important collaborators for knowledge production involving subaltern
communities.

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Secondly, knowledge practices focusing on marginality must necessarily involve communities whose
knowledge is emerging from struggles against oppression. As opposed to the ‘epistemologies of the
North’ linked with the objectivity, rationality, neutrality of Eurocentric approaches in knowledge
generation, these epistemologies emerge from resistance to colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy.
They seek to challenge dominant, Eurocentric ways of scientific knowledge production by identifying
and discussing

the validity of knowledges and ways of knowing not recognized as such by the dominant
epistemologies […] either because they are not produced according to accepted or even
intelligible methodologies or because they are produced by absent subjects deemed incapable
of producing valid knowledge. (Santos, 2018: 2)

According to Santos, what distinguishes the epistemologies of the South from those of the North is
that they are embodied and value sensations, emotions, experience and memory. Empathic to
suffering, they do not distinguish between knowledge, ethics and politics since ‘the politics of sharing
or solidarity with the struggle are not possible without an ethic of care’ (Santos, 2018: 91).
Furthermore, they reject the abstract idea of progress and seek social transformation through
solidarity with and listening to the life experiences of social groups that are victims of exclusion and
unjust suffering under capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy. Learning from their approaches and
methods is therefore vital to elaborate alternative strategies involving disadvantaged communities in
knowledge production and achieving cognitive justice.

Collaborations with such politically engaged actors have important consequences for academic
partners. They redefine the role of academics, transforming researchers into collaborators in the
projects of communities (Bonfil, 1991). This impactful transformation of vertical relationships
between researchers and researched into horizontal ones between equal knowledge producers is
anchored in a range of ideals which, despite their potential contradictions, all concur in promoting
greater social justice in cities. The first one is the ‘right to the city’ (Lefebvre, 1968), interpreted as a
collective rather than individual right to ‘reinvent the city more after our hearts’ desire’ (Harvey, 2012:
4). The second one is the model of the ‘socially cohesive city’ (Cassiers and Kesterloot, 2012) with its
roots in social justice, unity and equality of opportunity for all (Harvey, 1973). The third one is linked
to the role of creative practice in these processes, and the hope, shared by Chantal Mouffe (2007),
that artistic activism can play a critical role in a society ‘by subverting the dominant hegemony and by
contributing to the construction of new subjectivities’ (Mouffe, 2007: 5). Finally, the last ideal is based
on the belief that an ‘epistemological shift is necessary’ (Santos, 2018: viii) in order to change the
world by collectively reinterpreting it through a dialogue between the producers of different types of
knowledge.

In line with these ideals, the core aim of this volume is to reflect on how collaborations between
scholars, activists, stakeholders, artists and communities can be used as a springboard to strengthen
resilience to socioeconomic marginalisation in vulnerable urban areas in countries belonging to the
different regions of the world. Without claims to global relevance, the contributors of this volume
have chosen to focus primarily on two large geographical areas: Western Europe and North America
on the one hand and Latin America on the other hand. These regions were chosen for their different
sociopolitical evolution and complementary perspectives on arts-based approaches. While the
approaches of countries located in the so-called ‘Global North’ have been marked by the legacies of

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colonial expansion, nationalism, civil rights movements, individualism and the ideal of the Welfare
State, Latin-American countries in the so-called ‘Global South’ experienced colonialism followed by
independence, modernisation, revolution or military dictatorship, re-democratisation and struggles
for emancipation led by indigenous and Afro-descendent populations. Emerging from a Latin-
American context, emancipatory approaches to art such as the conceptualisation of public art
available to the citizenry in post-revolutionary Mexico (Coffey, 2012) or and Boal’s (1979; 2000)
theorisation of the ‘theater of the oppressed’ in Brazil, drawing on Freire’s work (1993), have long
been leading the way in exploring new ways of democratising knowledge through arts practice.

While the terms ‘Global North’ and ‘South’ might seem practical to refer to regional groupings of case-
study countries having similar political and socioeconomic histories, we recognise that these
categories have originated in the traditionally Eurocentric dichotomy of metropolitan and colonial
societies. As such, we believe that the binary distinction between these two labels is not only arbitrary
but also increasingly porous, as each collection of countries encompasses diverse values and
ideologies that defy being grouped together as a common entity. We would also like to highlight the
fact that the entities designated as ‘Global North and South’ do not necessarily overlap with what is
meant by ‘epistemologies of the North and the South’. Scholars from the Global North can be
promoter of the epistemologies of the South while academics from the Global South, whether
educated internationally or not, may rely on categories and research methods established by the
epistemologies of the North, some of which come with embedded biases and hidden agendas
resulting from centuries of knowledge regulation in which any knowledge not susceptible to serve the
objectives of the colonial rule was invalidated and suppressed.

In the light of this context, this volume aims to use a multidisciplinary framework to propose an
original approach to methodology, reconceptualising what we are calling ‘Co-Creation’, to explore this
process as a broadly applicable tool, and to examine its suitability and relevance to challenging
marginalisation in various contexts. A key innovation of our approach is to define Co-Creation as a
knowledge process that employs creativity through arts-based methods as an alternative way to listen
to the voices of marginalised communities and involve them in generating shared understandings of
their neighbourhoods and (in)justices in the city. This volume is the first to conceptualise this
understanding of Co-Creation and to critically explore it in a range of geographic and organisational
settings in both the Global North and South. The comparative approach adopted by this volume has
provided the contributors with opportunities to test Co-Creation in various contexts, seeking to
address different forms of marginalisation including ethnic, racial, social, postcolonial or generational
inequalities, and to discuss these experiences in the light of international debates on cohesive cities
and active citizenship.

By involving local residents and practitioners in collaboration with researchers, artists and other non-
academic communities, the Co-Creation method aims to promote new interactions between partners
based on dialogue, to create new links (for instance between researchers, residents and artists) and
to provide a safe environment for shared knowledge production. It encourages participants to share
insights and awareness using creative or arts-based practice as catalysts to develop skills, networks
and resilience. Co-Creation therefore primarily represents an artist-researcher-stakeholder
collaboration which results in producing advances in shared knowledge as well as tangible outputs.

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While the authors of this volume recommend using creativity as a catalyst to facilitate trust building,
cooperation and interaction between the different actors involved in knowledge production, we are
also aware of the risk of co-optation that this advocacy represents for the arts. Yúdice (2003) described
top-down strategies of ‘channelling the arts to manage the social’ (Yúdice, 2003: 12) as the
‘expediency of culture’, arguing that in the post-Fordist, post-civil rights era the reduction of direct
state subvention of social services led to a reorientation of arts and culture to a means with no value
other than to solve social problems, a cost-effective instrument to reduce crime, enhance education,
create jobs, facilitate urban renovation and consolidate citizenship founded on active participation.
This vision of art as a panacea for ‘a more vigorous economy, more democratic and effective
government, and fewer social problems’ (Yúdice, 2003: 14) was encapsulated among others in the
New Labour notion of the ‘creative economy’ which sought to turn the arts into a resource for
economy and politics. This vision has resulted in top-down arts projects in a range of countries around
the world.

There is, however, another, more political vision of creative engagement articulated by Chantal
Mouffe (2007; 2013) according to which socially-engaged artistic and cultural practices can provide
communities with opportunities for self-understanding and resistance to the dominant social
imaginary. We therefore apprehend Co-Creation workshops as agonistic interventions which have the
potential to open ‘cracks in the system’ and to ‘allow us, through imagination and the emotions they
evoke, to participate in new experiences and to establish forms of relationships that are different from
the ones we are used to’ (Mouffe, 2013: 97). Through understanding differing viewpoints and ‘ways
of knowing’, from both academic and non-academic perspectives using artistic practice, a shared,
agonistic understanding can be developed and translated into recommendations that lead to practical
and potentially transformative change (Mitchell et al, 2017).

What is Co-Creation?

In this volume, we define Co-Creation as a collective creative process that aims to feed into shared
understandings of socially-just neighbourhoods and cities (Carpenter and Horvath, 2018). Co-Creation
simultaneously results in tangible material outputs – for instance, artworks, artefacts or other objects
– and knowledge generated by multiple partners. The former are produced using arts or other creative
methods. While their aesthetic quality is important, the collaborative process leading to their
elaboration is equally, if not more, vital, because it offers multiple opportunities for participants to
share perceptions, views and understanding about how to build more socially-just places for the
future.

The term ‘co-creation’ itself was initially applied in the business sector in the 1990s, referring to
customer contribution to product and service development (Ind and Coates, 2013; Vargo and Lusch,
2004). It has since been applied more broadly in areas such as public participation, collaborative
governance and community engagement (Voorberg et al, 2015: 1335). It is in this sphere that we seek
to redefine the concept in relation to a methodology that engages with communities and helps them
produce knowledge and understanding about their neighbourhoods, to deepen their awareness of
the social world in close collaboration with artists and academic communities.

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Although in recent times ‘co-creation’ has gained traction in a variety of contexts, it has been used
with shifting meaning and often interchangeably with other ‘co’-terms. One of these is ‘co-
production’, a term associated with citizens’ involvement in the provision of public services.
Originating in the work of Ostrom (1990), the concept of ‘co-production’ was further developed by
Jasanoff (2004) in the field of public management research. More recently, critics have highlighted
how co-production has also been associated with the reduction of state funding for services in the
public sector, where end-users are increasingly called upon to fill the gaps in provision left by austerity
cuts (Fotaki, 2015). The term has recently been also adopted in the academic literature (Banks et al,
2018; Campbell and Vanderhoven, 2016) where it is used to describe the ‘participatory turn’ through
which researchers generate knowledge in collaboration with stakeholders and other non-academic
partners previously excluded from formal research processes (Banks et al, 2018; Ersoy, 2017). In this
context, the process can also be labelled ‘co-creation’ (Leading Cities, 2015).

The knowledge generating process we refer to as ‘Co-Creation’ (used in this volume with capital letters
to distinguish it from the above meanings of ‘co-creation’) draws on many of the principles of
‘participatory action research’ as a well-established approach to social enquiry (Whyte, 1991; Reason,
1994; Greenwood and Levin, 1998), while it also reflects the core foundations of ‘co-operative inquiry’
(Heron, 1996). These approaches emphasise the importance of research ‘with’, rather than ‘on’,
people and have a long-established tradition in social science enquiry, blurring the boundaries
between ‘researcher’ and ‘researched’ to break down hierarchical barriers in order to encourage
mutual learning (Beebeejaun et al, 2014). Our approach to Co-Creation adopts these guiding
principles, but takes them one step further, by advocating for systematic collaborations between
academic researchers and a range of non-academic partners. These involve three groups in particular.
Firstly, groups of local residents who have a stake in the research topic at hand; secondly, stakeholders
who are invested in local structures to affect societal change; and thirdly artists whose socially-
engaged practices contribute to voicing diverse experiences and processes at the local level and to
generating understanding around spatial justice and social inclusion. The boundaries between these
groups are fluid and partners in Co-Creation may sit within one or several groups simultaneously.

A key innovation of our understanding of Co-Creation is the involvement of all participants in a

creative, arts-based practice of knowledge production, including academic researchers and members
of the non-academic community who together engage in creative methods. By challenging rigid
binaries such as ‘researchers’ and ‘researched’, ‘academic’ and ‘non-academic’, or ‘artists’ and ‘non-
artists’, this approach seeks to balance the inherent power dynamics that are present in social
relationships. Whereas the overarching aim of Co-Creation is underpinned by notions of equality and
inclusivity, Co-Creation as a practice inevitably unfolds within an arena of diverse and at times
conflicting interests. Researchers, local residents, artists and policy makers may have different ideas
about the overall narrative to be developed using Co-Creation, who is best positioned to develop and
disseminate the emerging stories and how these should be presented and applied.

Recognising such deep-rooted power relations embedded within society, Alexandra (2015: 43) offers
the conceptual tool of ‘political listening’ as a way forward, suggesting that ‘within this nexus of
interdependent yet unequal relationships, a methodological attention to the politics of listening offers
conceptual inroads into addressing the power asymmetries inherent in participatory knowledge
projection’ [italics added]. The concept of ‘political listening’, first identified by Bickford (1996),
highlights the presence of conflict and difference and makes communicative interaction necessary. As

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Bickford notes, ‘communicative interaction – speaking and listening together – does not necessarily
resolve or do away with the conflicts that arise from uncertainty, inequality or identity. Rather it
enables political actors to decide democratically how to act in the face of conflict, and to clarify the
nature of the conflict at hand’ (Bickford, 1996: 2). Co-Creation involves political listening and complex
negotiations to address hierarchies, tensions and disagreements during the Co-Creative process. A
further issue for Co-Creation is the need for reflexivity, on the part of all participants in the process,
paying attention to positionality, as well as to ‘reflexivity, the production of knowledge and the power
relations that are inherent in research processes’ (Sultana, 2007: 382). If successfully executed, this
approach to Co-Creation acknowledges the tensions and power relations that are likely to exist
between participants and creates an environment of mutual trust in which participants can both listen
to each other and negotiate outcomes through the more subtle, embodied ways of collective creative
practice.

Co-Creation in theory and practice

Translating the central aims of Co-Creation into practice is faced with complex challenges due to the
infinite variety of contexts, configurations of actors and power relations. To be able to satisfy different
needs and address issues that are relevant in certain contexts rather than in others, Co-Creation as a
method has to be adaptable. Yet this flexibility should not jeopardise the democratic, inclusive ethos
at its core. This makes it difficult to provide a universally valid blueprint applicable in every context.
Thus, without pretence to offering precise guidelines, we propose a set of overarching ‘principles’
(understood here both as a rule and as a foundation for belief and behaviour) which have been shaped
through discussions with researchers, artists and practitioners and tested through a range of case
studies in both the Global North and South (see Figure 1.1).

These ten principles establish a framework underpinned by a set of ideals and a range of
methodological considerations. The first five principles outline an ethos in which all partners are
considered equals and treated with respect, existing power relations are acknowledged and strategies
are devised to mitigate them. The dialogue between participants is enabled by trust built through
lengthy processes facilitated by sharing social space and common meals and working together
towards shared creative objectives. Some of the ethical issues addressed here revolve around
partners’ status as professional or volunteer Co-Creators, with salience for whose time and labour
should be remunerated. With regard to ownership and dissemination, we believe that collectively
produced outcomes should be considered as the shared property of all participants.

The remaining five principles are concerned with practical issues rather than ethical ones. They argue
for initial stakeholder meetings to be held as a way to identify participants’ needs and acknowledge
pre-existing local knowledge. They also recommend that at least some, if not all, actors should be
embedded in the context where Co-Creation is taking place, thereby facilitating the understanding of
specific local challenges. They advocate for the active participation of all the partners in the project
design as well as in knowledge production and creative activities. However, there may be
circumstances in which some of these principles can be disregarded.

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Figure 1.1 – Co-Creation principles

1 EQUAL 6 EMBEDDED

Co-Creation provides a safe environment Participants taking part in Co-Creation

for knowledge exchange, in which workshops are embedded in the urban
inequalities are recognised and mitigated area where the intervention happens.
against using strategies for power drawn
up early on in the process.

2 RESPECTFUL 7 AWARE

All participants commit to respecting each Co-Creation workshops are preceded by a

other and the Co-Creation principles.
series of stakeholder consultations to
ensure that local needs, contextual
specificities and existing knowledge are
taken into account and that evaluation
criteria are co-created with stakeholders
at the beginning of the process.

3 ETHICAL 8 PLURIVOCAL
MINDSET

Ethical issues are handled with care
following University procedures, and
whenever possible, local labour is
remunerated.
METHODOLOGY
All participants have a voice setting the
goal(s) of Co-Creation workshops and the
design of the activities is based on a
consensus about what will be co-created.

4 SHARED 9 ACTIVE

The outcomes are the shared property of All participants involved in Co-Creation
all participants and cannot be exploited workshops play active roles in preparing,
without their previous consent. running, documenting and analysing the
creative process, be they researchers,
artists or communities.

5 TRUST-BASED 10 CREATIVE

Co-Creation aims to produce trust-based Co-Creation workshops use art/creativity

relationships. To facilitate this, to produce outcomes, both tangible such
participants are encouraged to spend time as works of art or creative products, and
together, sharing meals and social space. intangible, such as networks and shared
understanding. These outcomes are
captured and evaluated.

Our definition of Co-Creation sees arts practice as embedded in the process of knowledge production.
This implies that the production of the understandings and the creation of tangible artefacts are not
two isolated processes, but two strongly interconnected facets of the same process. This inevitably

13
raises questions about how knowledge created through creative methods is articulated and
interpreted and how it contributes to a deeper understanding of different perspectives about issues
related to the neighbourhood, the city and social justice in general.

Another set of questions concerns Co-Creation’s relationship with other art-based methods. What
does Co-Creation do differently from other creative methods? Is it impactful in general or only in
certain contexts? What are Co-Creation’s social benefits and how can they be evidenced? While some
critics have cautioned against proclaiming the all-encompassing benefits of arts-based methods in
bringing about social change (Low et al, 2012), there is a growing body of literature on arts-based
methods in research as a valid approach to troubling social issues (Leavy, 2015). Blodgett et al (2013:
313) suggest that arts-based methods can be used not only by professional artists but also by
‘researchers and professionals to assist people in expressing feelings and thoughts that […] are difficult
to articulate in words’. Arts-based approaches are increasingly seen as being particularly powerful in
enabling agency, and creating spaces for empowerment, engagement and ownership (Mitchell et al,
2017), while ‘investigating topics associated with high levels of emotion’ (Prendergast, 2009).
Involving artists in research projects can be beneficial because often their ‘approaches will be different
from established norms, creating an unexpected experience for all collaborators’ (Pahl et al, 2017:
131) and their ‘interventions can change the way people do things […] and might create a new
configuration of how space is used and appreciated by those who live there’ (Pahl et al, 2017: 132).

However, many arts-based research projects only use art as a trigger to elicit emotions or responses.
In these projects, arts-based researchers remain purposely outside the creative process (which differs
from the Co-Creation approach), in order to be able to understand participants’ views without
adopting and reproducing them as their own (Bryant and Charmaz, 2007). Other approaches,
however, may ally arts-based and participatory research methods to use the productive tension during
the collaborative process of knowledge production to help multiple and conflicting perspectives
emerge. This is advocated by Gallagher (2008) who uses arts-methods to position the researchers as
doers instead of observers and to build a shared place in which ‘polivocality’ helps resist ‘closed
interpretations’ (Gallagher, 2008: 71).

Similarly, in Co-Creation, we propose that all participants including researchers engage in the creative
process as a way of collaboratively co-creating knowledge and deepening understanding from
different perspectives. In addition, Co-Creation seeks to learn from artists’ capacity to challenge and
dismantle multiple stigmas attached to disadvantaged neighbourhoods using ‘complicated gestures
of rewriting, strategies of decontextualising’ (Rosello, 1998: 18) and encourage residents of vulnerable
neighbourhoods to embrace aspirations, contributing to improve their lives and well-being, and to
achieve positive outcomes in terms of health, education, and employment to reposition themselves
within society (Kearns, 2003).

Other issues arising concern the finality and the feasibility of the knowledge process. What motivates
different actors’ participation? Who is meant to apply the results and to what end? How will the
collectively produced understanding lead to social change? To what extent do residents actually
benefit from working with artists and researchers and what do researchers gain from engaging in
creative activities together with communities and artists? How can this impact be evidenced? How
can Co-Creation handle hierarchies and conflicting interests that may exist within the communities,
and between them and the external partners? For instance, should policy makers or other power

14
holders be admitted to participate in Co-Creation or would this make the creation of a safe space for
other participants too challenging? Can state-initiated, top-down attempts at Co-Creation be trusted
to come without a hidden agenda? Who is the most credible initiator of Co-Creation, researchers or
artists seeking to reach into communities, or communities reaching out to them? And finally, can Co-
Creation be practiced in large groups or at a wider community level rather than in the intimacy of a
small group framework? Can it be done in a short timeframe or does it require a lengthy phase of
relation-building?

These are only some of the questions this volume sets out to explore. Being critically mindful of the
links between socially-engaged collaborative practice, artistic presence, urban change and
displacement, and aware of potential tensions between artistic and academic ways of producing
knowledge, the authors of this volume propose to analyse the potential of Co-Creation to offer an
alternative lens and a cross-over between the epistemologies of the North and the embodied,
sensorial and passionate approaches developed by the epistemologies of the South.

Co-Creation in the Global North and the Global South

This book originates in a partnership between two European and two Latin-American academic
institutions and three European non-profit organisations, brought together in a research project
funded under the EU’s Horizon 2020 RISE scheme (2017–20) to explore Co-Creation in Western Europe
and Latin America. Some chapters draw on research undertaken as part of the project such as case
studies in Rio de Janeiro, Greater Paris or Mexico City. Other contributors reflect on similar practices
and their own experience in cities including Bristol, Brussels, Madrid, Swindon and Vancouver.
However, rather than the planned outcome of a project, the book is the result of an organic
collaboration between artists, researchers, NGOs and community activists who have engaged in an
interdisciplinary and cross-national dialogue about knowledge production with communities in
different contexts of urban marginality.

Some authors are academics based at the University of Bath, Oxford Brookes University, the National
Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
(PUC-Rio). Others are activists from the NGOs European Alternatives (Paris), City Mine(d) (Brussels)
and Tesserae (Berlin). Despite their diverse experience as academics, practitioners, activists and in
some cases artists, most contributors associated with the Horizon 2020 project have studied in Global
North universities and are as, if not more, familiar with the epistemologies of the North than with
those of the South. Reversely, corporeal knowledge associated with the epistemologies of the South
can also exist in communities based in European or North American geographical settings. For a better
representation of community voices and Southern perspectives, however, the pool of authors has
been widened to include chapters written or co-written by artists and activists who were not part of
the project originally, but who are now associated with it. As a consequence of this, the book is truly
Co-Created across disciplines, sectors and continents.

Drawing on a range of Global North and Global South perspectives, this volume seeks to investigate
Co-Creation through theoretical reflections supported by analysis of Co-Creation practice using a case-
study approach. It is divided into two main parts. Part I seeks to engage with broader theoretical
debates about Co-Creation and arts-based knowledge production in the Global North and South while

15
Part II focuses on Co-Creation in practice and seeks to bridge the gap between academic, artistic and
community perspectives.

After this introduction sets the scene for a reconceptualisation of Co-Creation as collaborative arts
and knowledge practice, the chapters in Part I critically explore the opportunities Co-Creation opens
up for emancipation, civil imagination, artistic citizenship, destigmatisation and new narratives.
However, they also point to potential risks such as co-optation by the state or the recycling in new
forms of old hierarchies that Co-Creation seeks to disrupt. Brownill and Natividad Puig (Chapter 2)
discuss whether existing definitions and conceptualisations of Co-Creation originating from the Global
North can adequately describe experiences from the Global South. They focus on the relationship
between Co-Creation and the state as a way of illustrating these debates in more depth. In Chapter 3,
Pantoja Peschard investigates the role of Co-Creation in challenging official narratives and histories
which tend to exclude deprived communities from participating as well as its relationship to Ariella
Azoulay’s (2012) concept of ‘civil imagination’, which is also then linked to the concept of ‘artistic
citizenship’.

Gázquez Iglesias (Chapter 4) develops this further, exploring the theoretical limitations of the ‘Global
North–Global South’ model and investigates the risks of a hegemonic representational practice that
reproduces asymmetry and domination. Here, Co-Creation is suggested as an innovative approach for
constructing alternative representational structures, discussed in the context of the Co-Creation
workshop that was held in Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro, in August 2018. Milanese (Chapter 5) then
explores the questions of where and when the Co-Creation methodology can be a useful strategy. He
reflects upon Co-Creation’s ability to open up temporary spaces of collaboration in which the shifting
shape and time of the urban can be discerned and made accessible. Depper and Fullagar (Chapter 6)
link Co-Creation as inventive practice with contemporary debates within new materialism. They
examine the implications of affect and human and non-human relations in creative collaborations and
Co-Creation’s material-discursive process. In Chapter 7, Castro Suarez and Quiroz Rothe broaden the
field, by exploring the material conditions of Co-Creation in metropolises such as Mexico City focusing
on the role of the built environment in processes associated with Co-Creation. The authors examine a
range of art practices taking place in different venues across the city and use the example of the recent
FAROS project involving the creation of dedicated art facilities in deprived areas. Finally, Valverde
Viesca and Pacheco Gordillo (Chapter 8) investigate the link between community social capital
generated in public programmes, advocacy actions and Co-Creation. They draw on the experience of
the recent Neighbourhood Improvement Programme in Mexico City to identify the potential role of
Co-Creation in participatory processes with a direct impact on policy making.

Part II addresses Co-Creation through a range of practices observed by contributors across the Global
North and South. Chapters in this section primarily focus on practices initiated by artist-cultural
promoters, artist-researchers, or the state. Some of these were originally designed as Co-Creation
while others were established on similar premises and therefore constitute useful examples as
comparators for our analysis. Whereas some chapters explore Co-Creation practice from a
predominantly academic perspective, others are authored or co-authored by artists and civil society
organisations and examine from their angle how the methodology of Co-Creation might support their
activities.

16
In Chapter 9, Pruvot examines the methodology of Co-Creation in the context of a local authority arts
collaboration project in Plaine commune, in the Greater Paris area, setting the case in the context of
debates around the Creative City. The chapter explores whether the Co-Creation methodology could
be used by local authorities in rethinking processes of consultation and participation and in creating
new modes of governance around urban development projects. Horvath (Chapter 10) then explores
Co-Creation from a Global North/Global South comparative perspective, by taking examples of two
literary festivals: the Brazilian Literary Festival of Peripheries (FLUP) and the French ‘La Dictée des
Cités’ (The Dictation of the Suburbs). While the chapter explores the creative potential of these two
events to disrupt some of the clichés attached to the French banlieues and Brazilian favelas, it also
reflects upon the possibilities of Co-Creating on a larger scale than the neighbourhood level.

Carpenter (Chapter 11) then takes the example of a Co-Creative practice in the form of a community-
based percussion band in Vancouver, Canada. She demonstrates that while the methodology of Co-
Creation holds critical potential as a tool to challenge stereotypes and marginalisation, it nevertheless
operates within the structural constraints of deeply embedded power hierarchies and hegemonic
discourses that dominate received narratives.

In Chapter 12, Segers draws on insights derived from projects run by the NGO City Mine(d) in Spain
and Belgium to reflect on social transformation through the lens of ‘tough issues’, drawing on the
work of de Certeau (1980) to explore the shift within community organisations from ‘résistance’ to
‘bricolage’. The chapter argues for the role of a third actor in a social transformation process who,
through a creative process such as ‘prototyping’ becomes tactically linked to key stakeholders. In
Chapter 13, King, Mean and Stewart-Hall explore the work of the Knowle West Media Centre, in Bristol
(UK), which engages with communities using creative methods to address local issues such as
inadequate and unaffordable housing. The chapter shows how creative processes can contribute to
nurturing exchanges and developing relationships of trust through Co-Creation. Continuing on the
community theme, Álvarez-Gortari, Mihessen and Spencer (Chapter 14) discuss some of the
innovative ways and collaborative approaches developed by Casa Fluminense, a non-profit
organisation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to influence urban policy and address issues of marginalisation.
Although Casa Fluminense’s approach shares some of the principles and strengths of Co-Creation, they
moved away from using the term Co-Creation itself, as they recognise that on a regional level a truly
Co-Creative process is difficult to achieve. In Chapter 15, Clift, Silva and Telles focus on the figure of
the black organic intellectual exemplified by Itamar Silva, journalist, community researcher and leader
of the activist group Grupo ECO, a community organisation in the favela of Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro.
The chapter explores Itamar Silva’s role in building activism in the neighbourhood and highlights some
of the key messages of Grupo ECO’s experiences for the Co-Creation method.

Staying in Rio de Janeiro, Rodrigues and Horvath (Chapter 16) explore favela tourism through the lens
of Co-Creation, taking the example of the favela Tabajaras and Cabritos in Rio de Janeiro, where graffiti
artist Tick (Rodrigues) has been working to design a favela tour focusing on street art. Building on a
collaboration between researchers, local residents and the artist, the project investigates Co-
Creation’s potential to challenge dominant narratives related to favela populations and disrupt
established models of favela tourism. Further community perspectives are examined in Mexico City
(Chapter 17) where Davies, Osorio Saez, Sandoval-Hernandez and Horvath explore the efficiency of
mixed-method research and a quasi-experimental approach in measuring the impact of Co-Creation
in an educational setting in Iztapalapa, a marginalised area of the city. The authors claim that while

17
some aspects of the behavioural change enabled by Co-Creation can be successfully evidenced at a
neighbourhood level, others are deeply embedded in the resulting artwork and the affects generated
by their creation and sharing, which call for new types of evaluation tools to be developed in dialogue
with the epistemologies of the South.

The Conclusion seeks to summarise what we can learn from Co-Creation experiences and similar
creative initiatives in the Global North and South. We identify key challenges such as ethical issues
resulting from previous hierarchies, practical obstacles in the way of collaborative processes and
relational issues both between Co-Creation partners and between Co-Creation teams and other
audiences, such as broader communities, policy makers and the state. Drawing on the contributions
in the previous chapters, we highlight key underlying themes, in particular drawing out the salient
comparative aspects. The book ends with a set of recommendations which can provide guidance for
activists, researchers, artists or policy makers and other practitioners setting up Co-Creation
workshops and offer directions for further research.

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22
PART I: CO-CREATION IN THEORY

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TWO

Co-creation and the state in a global context

Sue Brownill and Oscar Natividad Puig

Introduction

Co-creation narratives are gaining global currency with initiatives and governments around the world
increasingly using the term to label their activities across very different contexts, in an example of
what McCann and Ward (2011) refer to as ‘policy mobility’. This chapter critically explores the
implications of this in two ways. Firstly, by drawing on debates about the need for theory to ‘see from
the South’ (Watson, 2009), it discusses whether existing definitions and conceptualisations of co-
creation, which tend to come from the Global North, can adequately characterise and understand the
experience of the Global South. Such debates overlap with decolonial approaches seeking to challenge
the geopolitics of knowledge production, which are of particular relevance to considerations of co-
creation (see for example Mignolo, 2000; Quijano, 2007). We therefore ask the question is co-creation
a colonising concept or can it be explored in ways which break down dichotomies and change relations
between the Global North and South as well as addressing other examples of marginalisation and
exclusion?

Secondly, it focuses on the relationship between co-creation and the state as a way of illustrating
these debates in more depth. In liberal democracies, the ideal of co-creation sees communities and
the state working together in addressing inequalities, allowing voices to be heard, providing
emancipatory potential and thus changing the relationship between the state and its publics. But as
Pritchard’s (2017) critique among others points out, in both the Global North and South, such
initiatives can be co-opted by the state and other agencies as a way of devolving responsibilities,
implementing growth-oriented urban agendas and organising voluntary effort leading to the potential
co-option of groups and initiatives into a restrictive narrative of co-creation. In other more extreme
cases, an oppressive and militarised state can close down spaces of co-creation. How do projects and
communities navigate these differing contexts and what forms of co-creation emerge within them?

These questions are significant ones for a project that brings together partners from the Global North
and South, but the origins of which could arguably be seen as adding to the colonisation of urban
theory and practice. This chapter will address them by drawing on relevant literature and exploring
the views and experience of participants in co-creative practices gathered in a series of in-depth
interviews with four local stakeholders directly involved in the H2020 Co-Creation case studies in
Brazil, and Mexico, and an additional three academics from these countries working in related fields.
The questions are aimed at capturing the implications of differing contexts and local
conceptualisations, exploring co-creation as an emerging concept in conversation with the partners of
the project beyond the term Co-Creation as defined in the introduction of this book. It also brings in
material and discussions held at three conferences organised by the project in Berlin, Rio and Mexico
City. The discussion is, therefore, largely restricted to the countries participating in the project but we
hope that this will raise debates and issues with a wider remit.

Seeing from the South

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The phrase ‘seeing from the South’ was popularised in a 2009 article by South African planner Vanessa
Watson (Watson, 2009). The article was part of a growing body of work which questioned the ability
of the urban theory ‘canon’ to fully understand and explain the urban experience in the Global South,
given such theory was based largely on the experience of major Western cities such as Chicago and
Los Angeles. Not only is this seen as an example, for some, of the colonisation of knowledge and the
exclusion of some voices in favour of others, but also as resulting in theory which cannot explain
southern cities, much less support calls for interventions within them. Watson was joined by other
writers such as Ananya Roy (2011) (writing largely about the Asian experience) and Jennifer Robinson
(2013) (Africa) in calling for urban studies and urban theory to be re-oriented and transformed by
taking on board the knowledge and experiences of the Global South. This, they asserted, would
produce different arguments and concepts, and include different voices from ‘traditional hegemonic
theory’ which, as a result, can be seen as provincial rather than global. We are aware that there are
other dimensions than the geopolitics of north-south distinctions to these critiques, particularly
articulations with relations of race, gender and sexuality (Lugones, 2007). However, we focus here on
‘seeing from the South’. The implications of this for a concept such as co-creation are twofold. Firstly,
is it merely yet another example of a concept from the North, which is imposed on the South, or
secondly (and from a more nuanced perspective) what are the implications of the differing contexts
in which co-creation occurs for how the concept can be theorised and understood.

What/where is the Global South?

Before exploring these questions further, it is important to understand what we mean by the term
‘the Global South’. Like co-creation, the term is itself contested. Its origins lie in the Brandt report of
1980 which sought to move away from the ‘third world’ label and shift global debates from a focus on
east/west. Nevertheless, Roy (2014) has questioned the subsequent construction of the Global South
as the location of underdevelopment. She notes that initiatives such as participatory action research
(PAR), movements for rights to the city, participatory budgeting, and so on show that new formations
are occurring in southern cities meaning the South cannot be seen as a ‘stable ontological category
symbolising subalternity’ (p.15) but instead should be seen as a source of innovation. Previously, (Roy,
2005) she has called for informality to be recognised as a form of urbanisation in its own right rather
as something apart from ‘formal’; in other words, real urbanisation. Miraftab and Kudva (2015)
recognise the dangers of essentialism and hierarchies associated with the term the Global South, but
argue for an understanding of the term that ‘emphasise(s) a shared heritage of recent colonial
histories in the global peripheries…combined with Post WWII experience of development to
“alleviate” poverty’ (p.4).

Mabin (2014) (also writing from South Africa) sees a dual situation of post-coloniality and a particular
political economic situation in which there is a condition of scarcity for the majority as southern
‘conditions’. It is above all, he argues, a relational not a geographical term. However, he also cautions
against a focus on ‘seeing from the South’ which sets up new dichotomies and hierarchies and could
potentially repeat the exclusion it is trying to overcome. He and others have questioned the usefulness
of the term ‘south’ itself. He also suggests that some theoretical tools may have value in understanding
the global urban experience despite their provenance. The issue then becomes one of conducting
research which tests rather than assumes the theoretical efficacy of such tools.

25
Policy mobility. A new form of colonisation?

It is not just theory which is critiqued from this perspective, but also practice. Weiner (2014), writing
from the Brazilian perspective, questions the notion of ‘best practice’ in policy and the rise of globally
circulating city-models (see also McCann and Ward, 2011). These are, he argues, also rooted in colonial
history and he details, for example, how urban planning in Rio adopted European models from the
Portuguese colonialists through to the French Beaux-Arts and the ‘Barcelona effect’. Mabin (2014)
also challenges the tendency to export ‘modernity’ as the aim of city building which has an underlying
assumption that the Western city is somehow ‘better’. Weiner argues that this practice has been
cemented in more recent years through multi-lateral development agencies and research which
‘reflects particular conceptions and goals’ (p.51) under the guise of international collaboration. This,
he argues, is another form of colonialisation, not the same as the cathedral and squares of the
Portuguese but one which nevertheless demonstrates relations of power, domination and exclusion
in similar ways to debates about the colonisation of knowledge.

The rise of global research agendas and the search for ways of addressing global challenges such as
the millennium development goals, imperatives that to a certain extent have driven this project, can
be seen as part of these debates. As Izzi points out in an auto-critique of one such project, these
agendas set up expectations that research projects will produce cutting edge results, be
interdisciplinary, collaborative, and participatory and achieve impact and equitable north-south
relations all at the same time (https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/10/17/can-we-
have-it-all-). There are dangers that from such practices new forms of knowledge colonialisation will
occur and tokenistic practices will emerge, which do not fundamentally alter research agendas in the
West unless attention is paid to the difficulties and politics of such projects. For example, she argues
that space should be found to reframe questions as a result of participatory research as projects
progress. This critique also raises questions about the micro-politics of co-creation projects, in
particular, the extent that ‘experts’ and ‘outsiders’ frame debates, lead activities and present results.

Against this Weiner and others argue that practice and knowledge should be ‘decolonised’.
‘Decoloniality is an intentional act a process of “de-linking” knowledge, theory and praxis from Euro-
centric Western structures and systems’ (Fernandez, 2019; see also Mignolo, 2009). Weiner argues
this is a dual process; recognising how the cities (and theories) of the West were themselves built
upon colonialism (trade and slavery) – in other words modernity and colonialisation are linked – and
also imagining a ‘different world’ not by replacing one set of theories with other ‘Southern’ ones but
through ‘pluri-versalism’, dialogues and research which is specific to context.

Moving forward; beyond dichotomies

The implications of these debates in terms of future urban research are varied. For some (Roy and
Watson) the challenge is now replacing many existing concepts and theories with new forms of
knowledge and new concepts and theories – ‘Southern theory’. However, others (Mabin and Weiner)

26
argue against this, seeing it as replacing one set of limited theories with another. Instead, there is a
need to move beyond critique and dichotomies to think about how research and policy mobility can
be framed to avoid exclusion and the resulting partial theorisation. This implies more dialogue,
reflexivity and hybridity in research. This would include recognition of the diversity of experiences and
knowledge and a commitment to theorising from this plurality/diversity. This is accompanied by an
appreciation of the power relations of ‘colonising’ knowledge and an intent to ‘trouble methodological
paradigms and knowledge constructions’ (Fernandez, 2019) while also paying attention to power
dynamics within research processes (Gaventa, 1993).

Robinson (2013) and others, for example, call for a new form of comparative research which is not
about comparing or transferring ‘best practice’ but about understandings emerging out of a deep
appreciation of each context. In this vein, Weiner (2014) calls for a dialogical approach based on a
‘borderless, free and fair trade of ideas’, an appreciation of the condition of production of the
knowledge that is being submitted to the dialogues, a questioning of taken for granted assumptions,
and a recognition of the difficulties of translating ideas and practices from one place to another. In
short, these seem to be about replacing the north/south dichotomy with a transformed research
process and a search for pluralistic/hybrid theorising.

We turn now to look at the implications of these debates for the concept and practice of co-creation,
as experienced on this project.

Co-creation. A colonising concept?

Major reviews of co-creation and related concepts already exist (see for example Voorberg et al, 2015;
Horner, 2016). These indicate that co-creation is a diffuse and contested concept. Leaving aside these
debates, we have focused here on the question raised in the introduction about whether co-creation
is an example of a colonialising concept or whether it could be explored conceptually and
methodologically in different contexts in a way that moves beyond dichotomies of north and south.
We do this firstly by exploring the evolution of the term co-creation and secondly by exploring in more
depth the understandings and uses of it from the perspective of our respondents.

Through carrying out a literature review for the project, it became clear that most recent writing and
discussion on the concept of co-creation has largely come from and is related to the Global North
(Colini and Brownill, 2018). Nevertheless, noting Weiner’s calls for scholars to reveal the interplay
between north and south in the formation of theories and ideas is one way of challenging such
silences. Such an exercise reveals a pattern of north/south interaction which is arguably underplayed
in many accounts. As shown elsewhere (Colini and Brownill, 2018) co-creation is not a new concept.
It initially gained traction in the business world in the 1990s referring to the active involvement of
customers in the ‘co-creation’ of the products they would consume in the future (Vargo and Lusch,
2004). Significantly, the term then migrated to the world of social and economic development through
the work of Eleanor Ostrom (1990) which stressed the value of cooperation and ‘co-creation’ in
resource development and management, particularly in the Global South. Practices such as
Participatory Rapid Appraisal (PRA), which focused on the participation of people in the formation of
development programmes and initiatives developed around this, went on to influence community

27
development activities in the North. However, this incorporation into international aid and
development practice could be seen as supporting arguments around colonialisation and co-creation.

Another example of north/south interactions is the work of theorists such as Freire (1993) who
established a strong base in theory and practice in the south, which then influenced thinking in the
north. Crystallised in his work Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1993), Freire addressed one of the key
concerns that co-creation and related concepts are addressing, that of knowledge and whose
knowledge should be used in the basis of action and decisions, seeking to establish an epistemology
based on challenging dominant discourses, de-centring exclusionary knowledge and acknowledging
the value of multiple forms of knowledge. His theorisation of knowledge based on Brazilian society is
a clear example of how the south has impacted theories in the north, as his pedagogic values and
theories can now be found through most Anglo-Saxon education systems. In a similar way, but more
recently, Mike Davis popularised the term ‘favela’ (Davis, 2015) in contrast to the English concept
‘slum’ to acknowledge differences across territories of poverty across the globe. Such a recent
conceptualisation may still result in a dichotomy between ‘slums’ and ‘favelas’, but it has the potential
of promoting the hybrid conceptualisation we are exploring for the term co-creation itself.

Considering the nature of the Co-Creation project, in which knowledge exchange is promoted between
partners in European and the Global South (Brazil and Mexico), the views of these ‘southern’ partners,
as expressed in their interviews with us, is of significance here. Firstly, at the level of terminology,
most felt that the concept was yet to be commonly used in both the policy and academic literature in
their countries. The prior arrival of other ‘co-‘ terms, especially around social and economic
development and also participatory arts movements, may have arguably led to the elision of the idea
of co-creation with related terms such as co-production, a recurrent point raised by our informants.
Secondly, there was some support for seeing co-creation as another ‘idea from elsewhere’ (McCann
and Ward, 2011) moving from north to south. On the rare occasions we were told that the term co-
creation was used, it tended to be by NGOs reliant on international funds and therefore linked to the
global agenda of cooperation and development discussed earlier in this chapter. In this way, such
NGOs become agents of policy mobility.

However, in a comment on why such mobility occurs, a respondent from one such NGO claimed that
imported concepts like co-production or co-creation are sometimes imposed not only by the North
but also by governments themselves, cementing what he called ‘the relationship between the centre
and periphery’. This is an acknowledgement of the relations of power and domination not just
potentially between the north and south but also the dominant view in cities of the South ‘the centre’,
and those voices historically marginalised, the ‘periphery’. Nevertheless, while conscious of these
relations, the organisation was also attempting to develop its own approaches under the co-creation
heading which could challenge them, once again showing the complexities that exist.

Related to this, in the words of one respondent, “the proximity of co-creation to innovation is
dangerous; there is a danger that (practices and theorisations) will be lost in the search or fashion for
new words and ideas”. For some respondents, this raised the danger that the use of a term such as
co-creation could obscure long traditions of social thought and action in particular places, while others
felt there was an opportunity for co-creation to learn from existing bodies of work pursuing similar
goals. Some mentioned the work of theorists such as Freire already discussed. Additionally, several
respondents called attention to the long and proud history of popular movements in the South, a long

28
fight for a more meaningful involvement whenever external stakeholders come to work in their
territories. This fight has sparked a conceptualisation of what popular movements in Brazil call
‘effective participation’, while in Mexico it has resulted in advocacy for participative development and
horizontally constructed public policies. In both cases, our respondents felt these practices, which
have existed and matured in their countries over decades, are addressing what co-creation is
ultimately aiming for. Therefore, arguing not only for continuity of social movements and activism in
popular territories but also for a conversation between foreign concepts with local experiences, some
respondents insisted on incorporating local traditions to the conceptualisation of co-creation when
working in their territories.

However, thirdly, despite the dangers of uncritically adopting concepts from elsewhere, and even
though co-creation is not part of the theoretical discourses of our respondents, some commented on
the usefulness of a new concept in bringing in fresh ideas and discussions not only among academics
but also policy makers: “could co-creation be a weapon to recognise agency and elevate claims and
demands?” asked one. Respondents recognised the importance of having a space for dialogue, a space
in which the different participating stakeholders openly acknowledge their interests, knowledge and
pre-conceived ideas. Co-creation could be a way of opening up such spaces and acknowledging
different forms of knowledge and debate. However, interviewees pointed out that co-creation “may
change the way we look at a situation, the way we describe, analyse and discuss it, but it won't directly
change the root of the problem [...]”.

Finally, Co-Creation by definition focuses on the co-elaboration of objects. Some interviewees

recognised the value of focusing on the production of an artefact or output, rather than becoming
trapped in the discussion of intangible processes, the search for effective participation or trying to
influence wider policy processes. This can open up new ways of influencing debates when other routes
are blocked. This also led to discussion around the role of arts, culture and/or citizenship more broadly
in the discussions of co-creation. For instance, our Brazilian respondents advocated a broader role for
culture instead of focusing only on arts, as it encompasses popular processes of knowledge production
more broadly.

Therefore, it would be too easy to conclude that co-creation is a concept only relevant to the Global
North, making its usage in the South questionable, or that an inevitable process of colonisation was
occurring. However, while the label ‘co-creation’ may not be applied by the partners in the Co-
Creation project, the process of ‘co-creation’ may well be occurring under a different name: effective
participation in Brazil or ‘participatory development’ in Mexico being some of them. There is also
evidence of an awareness of how terms such as co-creation could be adapted, made and remade as
they circulate globally.

Bearing in mind the calls of Watson and Robinson for more comparative research, this provides scope
for exploring the different meanings, definitions and practices of ‘co-creation’ in a variety of different
contexts in both the Global North and South. We do this not to develop conceptual clarity, to reach
an overarching definition of co-creation, but to show the complexity, variation and potential of the
concept. We do this by focusing on a key aspect of the theory and practice of co-creation: the role of
the state and state-citizen relations that are embodied within it. Therefore, in order to reflect on the
sociopolitical particularities of these contexts, the following section explores the role of the state in
Brazil and Mexico, relating it to Western liberal democracies.

29
Co-creation and the state; North and South

Co-creation as an activity, certainly within this project, tends to focus on the actions of communities
attempting to make their voices heard, change conditions or address marginalisation and
stigmatisation. In many contexts, this brings the co-creation process into contact with the state. Yet if
definitions of co-creation are contested, then so is the relation between co-creation, people, and the
state. In addition, the spaces of co-creation created by the dynamics between these elements can vary
greatly from place to place. Therefore, this becomes fertile ground to explore further debates
regarding north and south based on the experiences in the different countries in the project.

The role of the state and the relationship between the state and its publics is a key focus of debates
on ‘seeing from the South’. As indicated above, such debates include calls for an awareness of how
governance forms part of the ‘southern condition’ (Mabin, 2014) and the need to avoid imposing
theories developed in the context of liberal Westernised democracies with their emphasis on
consensus-building on the South. Within this, we focus on two areas: different rationalities of state-
society relations and different spaces of participation. In terms of different state rationalities, Parnell
and Robinson (2012) for example caution against seeing the state as monolithic and of assuming that
neo-liberalising trends evident in the Global North are universal. Writing about South Africa, they see
the state as having an important role in, for example, anti-poverty programmes which need not follow
the co-opting logic of neoliberalism. This suggests the need for an awareness of different rationalities
of state intervention, which again, we would argue, can transcend north/south distinctions. De Satge
and Watson (2018) extend this to look at state/society relations. They use the term ‘conflicting
rationality’ to describe state-society relations in highly conflictual southern contexts, where
consensus-building or collaborative participatory processes are unlikely to be effective. For example,
they write about attempts by the state to ‘formalise’ informal settlements which are met with
resistance by those who feel their livelihoods and ways of life are being threatened as a result. Even
practices such as co-creation, aimed at recognising diversity within territories, may be based on
universal assumptions of inclusion that would fail to recognise the ‘conflicting rationalities’ (Watson,
2003) within a sociopolitical context.

The recognition of the complexities of state-society relations is extended when looking at

participation. Cornwall (2004), for example, distinguishes between invited and claimed spaces. Invited
spaces are those in which participants are asked to participate, such as those linked to public policy.
Claimed spaces are those that are created and taken by citizens themselves either in opposition to or
in the absence of formal policies. This inevitably raises questions about power. American planner
Sherry Arnstein summed these relations up 50 years ago in her famous ladder of participation, with
differing degrees of citizen power represented as different ‘rungs’ on the ladder. Notable in the ladder
are the bottom rungs, which depict attempts at participation without changes in power dynamics,
which instead can be used by those with power to legitimate their (unchanged) roles/decisions and
manipulate participants (Arnstein, 1969). It is this sort of manipulation which prompted Cooke and
Kothari (2001) to label participation as a new ‘tyranny’, linking it to the spread of neoliberal
governance forms and development aid agendas (including practices such as PRA) around the world.

30
Miraftab (2009) writing from the context of the Global South, discusses the role of ‘insurgent’ planning
here. These are practices which are ‘counter-hegemonic, transgressive and imaginative’. That is, they
create spaces which challenge the status quo (and for Miraftab that includes the transfer of policy
objectives from north to south) and aim for more inclusive and just outcomes. Such debates, while
intersecting with north/south distinctions, nevertheless ultimately transcend them. There can be no
simple reading off of particular participatory spaces being linked to particular geographies. Instead
they can co-exist or conflict within the same city or even initiative. However, the context in which
these practices occur needs to be fully appreciated and taken into account in ways that are aware of
north/south dynamics.

Such arguments suggest that the state can take different forms in different places and over time and,
as a result, there are complexities in the relationship between co-creation and the state which may or
may not correlate with north/south distinctions. We illustrate this with an overview of the context of
co-creation actions in the different locations within which the project is engaged. Later chapters
discuss particular neighbourhoods in detail; here we focus on broad trends in state/civil society
relations around co-creation drawing on ideas of differing and conflicting rationalities and spaces of
participation.

In Western Europe, normative assumptions about co-creation as a ‘good thing’ have led to it being
increasingly adopted within policy programmes, such as those of the EU. Many area-based schemes
see the ‘democratic deficit’ as being part of the causes of neighbourhood disadvantage along with
related issues such as the lack of social capital. Ways of overcoming this could be through collaborative
planning, community involvement and the use of art projects to ‘empower’ and to build social capital.
This will then contribute to the redirection of resources to areas/groups and the building of a
consensus around future actions. Co-creation, in this way, is seen as a way of bringing together policy
makers, residents, and other actors to ‘co-create’ solutions to particular issues/problems. Such
approaches become further embedded through funding programmes on the national and global
scales.

The role of culture and artistic practices in addressing urban deprivation and marginalisation have
received increased attention in recent years. As Pruvot’s chapter in this volume shows in the case of
Saint Denis, at the macro level, culture is seen as a way of promoting economic growth and attracting
inward investment and, at the micro level, a cultural strategy looks to involve young people in theatre,
music and the arts to promote inclusion. Participatory practices are also labelled as co-creation or co-
production with consultancies and agencies being employed to implement programmes. One such
example is the ‘co-creation’ with artists and designers of open spaces and art works linked to a major
new rail link. In this context, co-creation as a term and a process often implies the complex ‘complicity’
(to use the phrase from our Berlin conference) of state and non-state actors.

Critiques of such actions argue that they can be co-opted by the state and constitute ‘governance
through community’ (Rose, 1996) with the state adopting co-creative policies in order to use
inclusivity and participation to its own ends. An example in England is the Big Society of the 2010–15
Coalition government, when then Prime Minister David Cameron’s political agenda to create a more
participatory democracy and devolve responsibility to the local level came at a time of public sector
cuts. As a result, the public was being asked to take on the role of co-creators/co-deliverers of services,
either instead of the state or as unpaid volunteers for it. Others (for example Swyngedouw, 1997)

31
argue these actions fundamentally ignore the conflict and the inequality in power that exists between
participants and naively assume consensus can be built.

Focusing briefly in the role of arts, as the focus on Co-Creation within this project intends, it is
important to highlight that similar critiques have been made of ‘art-washing’ (Pritchard, 2017) as a
process by which artists and creative practices are used to literally paint over both the incorporation
of communities through participation, but also the continued existence of major socioeconomic
divisions which remain unaltered by the regeneration or other policies targeted at ‘deprived’
communities. The role of artists in the processes of gentrification is a particularly relevant issue here,
both in terms of their role in the potential incorporation of community energy and also the micro-
politics of co-creative practices (Ley, 2003).

Such examples and experiences highlight the dangers of entering the invited spaces of participation.
This does not mean, however, that there are no spaces being claimed by and through co-creation in
the Western European context. Throughout the European cities involved in the project it is possible
to see examples where land is being used to create cultural spaces which celebrate local culture rather
than promote economic development, and which use artistic practices to challenge and disrupt
dominate narratives about people and places.

In the case of Brazil, by contrast, there has been a dramatic change in state-society relations as a result
of the election of a popularist right-wing government. This has closed down spaces of co-creation and
policy opened in previous years and lead to state responses in low income areas being characterised
largely by military interventions and an absence of social programmes. This is particularly the case in
Rio, where over the previous two decades, political narratives advocated terms such as ‘community
participation’ and ‘social inclusion’ (such as the discourse behind Favela Bairro), enabling communities
to co-design urban interventions. In the words of our respondents, these approached ‘true co-
creation’ or ‘effective participation’. In the current political scenario, however, the Western policy
‘ideal’ of all stakeholders (particularly state and non-state actors) co-creating solutions appears both
distant and naïve. Nowadays, the reality for many low-income areas is that the presence of the state
is largely characterised though police ‘pacification’ units, a militarised and controlling form of ‘poverty
management’, and an example of ‘anti-politics’ according to our partners. As a result, and in a clash
of rationalities, favelas are ‘subordinated’ and remade within public policy not as a space where the
state and civil society can work together but as a space to be ‘pacified’ and occupied.

Therefore, in the face of a militarised state looking to restrict rights and resources to low income areas,
culture and co-creation become both highly constrained and highly politicised. It is here that the
discussion of insurgent spaces becomes significant. Cultural practices such as poetry, graffiti, music
and dance were seen as challenging such images, bringing different people and communities together
and as practices of resistance. As one interviewee said, “Cultural movements have the possibility of
reconfiguring the city […] We do politics through culture”. But they are also mindful that “we are not
able to change wider structures of power and inequality in society” even though they were able to
enact a different notion of community politics which defies the state’s positioning.

Within this context, some see the potential of 'co-creation' as a way of opening new spaces of
dialogue, sharing knowledge, and legitimising the claims of marginalised groups. An example here is
the Popular Plan for Vila Autodromo, a favela threatened with demolition to make way for the Olympic

32
Park in Barra da Tijuca. Pressure groups, residents, universities and others came together to create an
alternative plan which was partially successful in ensuring 20 families remained on the site. Such
activities, as well as giving support and sharing knowledge, can be useful in legitimising campaigns and
validating the claims of marginalised groups. In other cities in Brazil, for example Salvador, where the
local state is more open to working with communities, work between universities and community
groups has been welcomed as a way of bringing the municipality and professionals into the arena to
enable their demands to be implemented. Therefore, there could be hope for ‘co-creation’ as a form
of autonomous practice beyond the state, or which links with parts of the state that are more
sympathetic. However, in recognition of the significance of the micro-politics of co-creative practices,
respondents were clear that this had to be from the perspective of the community reaching out, not
NGOs, universities or artists reaching in. In the Brazilian context, therefore, co-creation could be seen
as a potential insurgent practice formed in the face of a very different form of state intervention both
from the ideals of consensus-building and from the contexts in other partner countries to the project.

The value of making South-South comparisons as part of the attempt to break down rigid north/south
dichotomies is underlined when we explore our third partner country. State-society relations in
Mexico appear very different from the Brazilian experience. The foundations for the current Mexican
state rationality can be traced to the early 1990s. The adoption of a neoliberal model in 1988 increased
socioeconomic polarisation which resulted in a crisis of political legitimacy (see Chapters 4 and 7 for
more details on the neoliberal shift in the Global South and in Mexico City respectively). During this
political crisis, governmental research on marginality (CONAPO, 1994) acknowledged the ‘emergence
of an active civil society that claimed new terms of political coexistence, as well as spaces for
participation [...] specially in the political and social institutions of the State’ (CONAPO, 1994: 9). This
document not only established an Index of Municipal Marginality (IMM) still used today to locate the
most vulnerable neighbourhoods, but also shifted the role of marginalised groups from being purely
passive beneficiaries to active agents in urban programmes. Under such a rationality, the state
provided multiple invited spaces for participation over the last two decades, including the
Neighbourhood Improvement Programme since 2006 (see Chapter 8). However, in practice, questions
exist about whether some of these are co-opted by the state as in European examples.

The election of a left-wing government in 2018, which expressly challenges neoliberalism, has
intensified the discourse on opening more spaces of participation and social justice. For example, a
new programme, PILARES (points of innovation, freedom, arts, education and knowledge) establishes
innovation points to provide skills and training aimed at developing economic opportunities together
with the community which, while not using the term co-creation, suggests a similar approach of
bringing together multiple stakeholders and experiences, including artists, to address urban issues,
but it is too soon to see whether this will lead to any changes in outcomes.

There has also been a long history within Mexico on the use of murals as a form of political expression
(see Chapters 4 and 7). However, one of our respondents said: ‘sometimes tools from public and
community art are appropriated by the state for regeneration purposes’, which acknowledges the risk
of co-creative spaces being co-opted by the state as has happened in Western Europe. Therefore, the
Mexican example, while not denying the differences between north and south, reveals how
rationalities of state intervention and configurations of participatory spaces can cross the boundaries
of north and south.

33
Conclusions
This chapter has shown the significance of ‘seeing from the South’ to understanding and characterising
the theory and practice of ‘co-creation’. Not only is it clear that there is a need to highlight the
interplay of theorisations between north and south which underpins such concepts
(decolonialisation), but it is also apparent that co-creation is constituted and enacted in different ways
in different contexts. This underlines Robinson’s call for context-rich research and Weiner’s ‘pluri-
versatilism’ to help break down north-south dichotomies and to generate new forms of
understanding. Later chapters in this volume add to these rich understandings of how co-creation is
constituted and experienced in a variety of contexts.

It has also shown how the spaces of co-creation, particularly those linked with state activity, vary over
time and space, not only between north and south but also within different places. This underlines
the need to avoid a one-size-fits-all view of co-creation, and instead see it as a contingent and complex
practice which has multiple possibilities and limitations partly dependent on place and context.
Practitioners and academics need to be alive to these differences and to take them into account in
both theorisation and action.

Finally, the experience of ‘co-creation’ in some parts of the Global South also underlines its potential
in creating autonomous, insurgent and alternative spaces. Such spaces can challenge not only the
transfer of ‘ideas from elsewhere’, but also related attempts to impose from the
‘centre/top/powerful’ on the ‘peripheral and marginalised’. Despite the contrasts in the relationship
between co-creation and the state in different contexts, this experience can speak to universal
debates about co-option, empowerment and ‘art-washing’.

Therefore, co-creation and co-creators need not inevitably be agents of ‘colonisation’ but can be a
way of changing relations both between north and south and within individual cities. However, it is
equally clear that such potential depends on an awareness of context and micro-politics; an awareness
that is deepened and intensified through ‘seeing from the South’.

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THREE

Fostering an artistic citizenship. How Co-Creation can awaken civil imagination

María José Pantoja Peschard

Introduction

One of the many spheres from which marginalised and deprived communities have been constantly
excluded is that of culture and the arts. Indeed, as Moore (1998) and many others have documented,
people living under precarious conditions have very limited access or no access at all to museums,
galleries, cinemas and other cultural and artistic venues. The methodology of Co-Creation discussed
throughout this book engages researchers, community workers, artists, policy makers and, most
importantly, members of a particular neighbourhood or urban community as participants in creative
projects and other inclusive artistic practices. The central idea behind Co-Creation is that, through
collaboration where all participants contribute as equals, knowledge is both shared and co-produced
and new synergies are fostered. By promoting equal participation through projects that make
different art forms and creative practices available to marginalised communities, Co-Creation has the
potential to counter segregation and build relations based on solidarity, respect and collaboration.
The role of art and creativity within Co-Creation projects is crucial insofar as these practices function
as bridges that connect the different partakers: researchers, artists, activists, policy makers and
residents or community members. Although it is important not to romanticise the extent to which art-
based projects can bring about significant social change, as Rosie Meade and Mae Shaw (2007) have
argued ‘clearly the arts cannot transcend socioeconomic contexts by the force and will of their craft
alone’, socially engaged arts do have the potential to ‘awaken people to both the negative and positive
spaces which it opens up’ (Meade and Shaw, 2007: 416).

The aim of this chapter is to explore how and to what extent the collaborative art and creative projects
that are essential to Co-Creation can help to make visible the conditions of marginalisation within and
beyond the communities they take place. My discussion here will be theoretical, as there are other
chapters in this book that analyse specific Co-Creation projects and their outcomes. Rather than
focusing on any particular case study, my claim will be that these projects contribute to awaken what
Ariella Azoulay (2012) calls ‘civil imagination’, and hence also take part in the construction of ‘artistic
citizenship’. In order to demonstrate this, I will first discuss what ‘civil imagination’ means for Azoulay.
She defines this notion as the potential capacity to build relations of solidarity, partnership and sharing
between people within marginalised communities, as well as between the latter and people living
outside of them. Such relationships serve to unearth and reflect critically upon the structures,
hierarchies and relations of power that are the causes underpinning the flaws, social disparities and
injustices existing in our societies. Azoulay’s proposal of ‘civil imagination’ as an ability required for
the understanding of photography as a practice (rather than just a product, the photograph) involving
spectators, the photographer and the individual photographed, implies that it is a skill. I will argue
that this skill can be and actually seems to be put into practice through Co-Creation projects, and not
just in photography. Secondly, I will claim that this ‘civil imagination’ is necessarily linked with an
exercise in ‘artistic citizenship’, which can be understood as the commitment to engaging in

37
collaborative art projects that stimulate positive interactions and exchanges among participants, and
that can thereby improve communal well-being (Elliot et al, 2016). Finally, I will argue that Co-
Creation, insofar as it involves a collaborative process based on the sharing of creative and artistic
skills, promotes among the participants a sense of community in which their opinions are heard and
counted. This sense of community, of belonging, is crucial, I believe, in the construction of more
cohesive and thriving communities.

The potential of a civil imagination

In Civil Imagination: A Political Ontology of Photography (2012), Azoulay critically examines issues of
visual culture; in particular, she discusses the political aspects of photography, the roles of both
spectators and critics (of photography), the body politics, as well as the concept of citizenship. She
argues that the boundaries of ‘the aesthetic’, ‘the political’, and ‘the civil’ perpetuate power relations
both within the nation-states and among them, which also produce and maintain exclusions and
abuses upon certain populations. Following up the arguments advanced in her previous publication
The Civil Contract of Photography (2008), Azoulay constructs her argument by using the example of
the Palestinian struggle and other populations that are vulnerable because they have been displaced
or are stateless. In particular, she points to the classification of Palestinians as non-citizens, and the
oppression and injustices they endure because of this exclusion from the category of citizenship. In
what follows, I will present how she constructs her concept of ‘civil imagination’ and what she means
by it so that later on I can explain how this skill is exercised through Co-Creation.

Azoulay begins her argument by questioning the dichotomy between the realm of aesthetics and the
realm of politics, especially as this distinction has been applied to photography. Whenever
photographs are qualified as ‘aestheticising’ what they portray, what is meant is that they are not
‘political’ enough; and conversely, whenever photographs are said to be ‘too political’, it is meant that
they are not ‘aesthetic’ enough. Azoulay criticises Walter Benjamin for articulating and
institutionalising a relation of mutual exclusion between the political and the aesthetic; and she claims
instead that the political and the aesthetic are beyond the either/or dichotomy. Her argument is,
firstly, that the fact that an image belongs to the realm of the aesthetic does not depend on the choice
of a particular individual or set of individuals (the artist or the critic); rather the image falls under the
domain of the aesthetic simply because it is an object that presents itself to the senses, it can be
perceived through the senses: ‘the aesthetic configuration associated with a given object or image
may be appraised and evaluated in a variety of ways, but it is impossible to negate its existence. The
aesthetic exists there as a consequence of the very fact that an object or an image is given to the
senses’ (Azoulay, 2012: 48). The aesthetic is thus a necessary component of any image. The second
thing that Azoulay argues is that the political, like the aesthetic, is not a quality attributed to the image
by an artist or a critic; the political is not the result of the intention of the artist. Instead, the quality
of the political cannot ‘be attributed to a single person or thing but involves the relations between
human beings in the plural’ (Azoulay, 2012: 49).

These two arguments allow Azoulay to affirm that a photograph is always the result of an event, the
event of photography, which is necessarily a collective practice insofar as the photographer makes
some choices that determine the final product of the event of photography but she or he can never

38
have full control upon the photographed subjects nor upon the meaning that the spectators may draw
out of the photograph. The event of photography thus implies an encounter between people, which
remains open and never completely determined by one single person. This means that the event of
photography configures a political space, ‘a space of relations between people who are exposed to
one another in public’ (Azoulay, 2012: 52):

Once the presence of photographed subjects is brought into consideration, it is hard not
to see that the space where the image is created, like the space from which it is viewed,
is indeed a plural one…Whereas the space within which people act is […] always a political
one, the photograph is not political in itself except to the extent that people make it exist
among themselves, in plurality, in public. (Azoulay, 2012: 54)

Co-Creation, as collaborative creative and artistic ventures, also configures – I will claim – a space of
relations that are political in the sense that these projects advocate plurality and are based on the
principle of respect and equality of all participants.

The implications that Azoulay draws from all of this are, on the one hand, that photographs (and all
images) belong ontologically to the realm of the aesthetic since the images are given to us by way of
our senses, and on the other hand, that photographs constitute a political space because they result
‘from the actions of multiple participants who play various roles in [their] production and
dissemination’ (Azoulay, 2012: 55). This explains in what sense she thinks that the political and the
aesthetic are not two mutually excluding domains: a photograph can be political and aesthetic at the
same time.

Azoulay continues and expands on her theses defended in The Civil Contract of Photography, where
she claims that photography has the potential to create a space of political relations between the
photographer, the photographed subjects and the spectators, which are not regulated or sanctioned
by the sovereign rule of the nation-state. These are relationships of solidarity, partnership and
responsibility between the three partakers (photographer, photographed subjects and spectators) in
the event of photography that scape the sovereign sanction but are, nonetheless, political relations
that configure the citizenry of photography (Azoulay, 2008: 23-4). For Azoulay, everyone is already or
can become a citizen in the citizenry of photography to the extent that all the participants in the event
of photography can address others and make claims through photographs. Even a stateless person
can become a citizen in the citizenry of photography addressing claims to the other members of this
citizenry. As Azoulay explains:

The theory of photography [the one Azoulay proposes] takes into account all the
participants in photographic acts – camera, photographer, photographed subject, and
spectator – approaching the photograph (and its meaning) as an unintentional effect of
the encounter between all of these. None of these have the capacity to seal off this effect
and determine its sole meaning. The civil contract of photography assumes that, at least

39
 in principle, the governed possess a certain power to suspend the gesture of the
sovereign power seeking to totally dominate the relations between us, dividing us as
governed into citizens and noncitizens thus making disappear the violation of our
citizenship. (Azoulay, 2008: 23)

The lines dividing all the governed into two categories, citizens and non-citizens, configure an unfair
and flawed conception of citizenship. Such structures of exclusion, Azoulay argues, can be subverted
and resisted through photography because it is a practice that constitutes a space that functions
without a single unique authority, a space that is also borderless, ownerless and public (Azoulay, 2012:
243). It is in this space of photography that everyone becomes a citizen, and where private spaces and
public spaces become one, thereby dismantling the distinctions between citizens and non-citizens as
much as those existing between spaces (Azoulay, 2012: 244).

Here it is possible to begin to see more clearly the links between what Azoulay is defending about the
practice of photography and the principles underlying Co-Creation, since the latter fosters bottom-up
approaches, a plurality of points of view and the equality of all partakers. The hierarchies dissolved,
or at least suspended, through the civil contract of photography can also be suspended within the
space of relations formed in Co-Creation projects, where participants are equal collaborators with a
role and a voice that counts.

The emergence of relationships beyond the sanction of the nation-state through the photograph
entails the exercise of a particular kind of gaze, what Azoulay calls the ‘civil gaze’ (Azoulay 2012: 70-
1). This civil gaze differs from the expert or professional gaze (but does not exclude it) because, instead
of focusing only on the photograph as a finished product belonging to the photographer (who is the
one who determines its meaning), it is a gaze that is aware of the whole picture, of all the relationships,
the conditions and all the steps that lead to the photograph. The civil gaze takes into account not just
the elements that the photographer intended to be captured within the frame, but also all the
participants in the event of photography, including those outside of the frame, as much as all those
elements that were not intended by the photographer but that play a part within the photograph.
Thereby, the civil gaze conforms an open, collective and public space, a civil space where everyone is
(equally) responsible and active.

What Azoulay’s argument is pointing at is that all partakers in the event of photography, but specially
the spectators, have to ‘see themselves as citizens’ who have ‘the ability to imagine a political state of
being that deviates significantly from the prevailing state of affairs’ (Azoulay, 2012: 3). This ability is
no other than what she calls the skill of ‘civil imagination’. According to Azoulay, an essential part of
the skill of civil imagination is precisely the activation of the civil gaze. For this reason, civil imagination,
she says, is ‘the interest that citizens display in themselves, in others, in their shared forms of
coexistence, as well as in the world that they create and nurture’ (Azoulay, 2012: 5). In this sense, ‘civil
imagination’ constitutes the capacity to see those divisive lines between citizens and non-citizens as
blurred, and even as non-existent.

In the case of the practice of Co-Creation, something similar occurs to the extent that participants are
encouraged to see themselves and others as equal contributors to the project. In this sense Co-

40
Creation participants are also able to imagine (and even actualise) a state of affairs where their
individual voices, actions and contributions are as relevant as those of others. Through imagining and
configuring a space of relations where there is no one unique leading figure, a non-hierarchical space
of relations, they also help to make visible and think critically about the power relations and structures
that sustain the social disparities and exclusions present in their communities.

Azoulay is particularly concerned with spectators’ potential to activate the skill of civil imagination
and, hence, the civil gaze, because she believes that within the event of photography it is the
spectators who, unlike the photographed subjects such as those portrayed in photographs of the
Palestinian population, tend to be privileged due to their status as citizens of a particular nation-state.
Their status a citizens precludes them from imagining ‘what it is not to be a citizen or what it is to be
a second class citizen’, but this is not a failure of their own particular imagination, rather this is ‘a
structural failure that expresses the inversion of the relations between the citizen and power that is a
feature of democratic sovereignty’ (Azoulay, 2012: 9). According to Azoulay, spectators both have the
potential and the moral duty to activate their civil imagination and refuse to accept, in the first place,
the discourse that separates the governed between a category of citizens and one of non-citizens; and
in the second place, the identification of disaster as the defining characteristic of populations that
have been denied citizenship by a certain regime. In this sense, civil imagination does not only allow
us to make visible the intolerable conditions and the rights violations endured by populations excluded
from citizenship, but also this exercise of civil imagination has the potential to ‘help the privileged
citizens to identify and acknowledge the inherent flaw in their citizenship, a flaw that makes them
accomplices to the crimes of a regime that does everything in its power to keep from appearing to be
criminal’ (Azoulay, 2012: 245).

This is an overview of the main arguments presented by Azoulay in her two books. A more detailed
and thorough discussion of the topics and problems that she presents would be necessary in order to
fully grasp the nuances and the theoretical assumptions upon which her political theory of
photography and the concept of citizenship that is implied by such a theory rely. I cannot undertake
this discussion here for that would extend beyond the scope of this chapter. However, one of the
things that I believe is worth pondering as regards Azoulay’s theses of the civil contract of photography
and the skill of ‘civil imagination’ is the question of whether her proposal is utopic and never entirely
realisable in the sense that it endorses the existence of political relations that are not sanctioned by
the sovereign power of the nation-state (the citizenry of photography), but that nevertheless are able
to negotiate with this power and direct claims towards it. It is my view that qualifying Azoulay’s theory
as utopic is not necessarily an objection to her political theory of photography because a state of
affairs and/or a theory that appears as utopic open up horizons of possibility; that is, they open up
prospects towards which we can work even if we would never fully reach them. It is in this sense that
I think Azoulay’s proposal is relevant for it is pointing towards the important fact that we do have
obligations towards those worse off, those without citizenship or with a second-class citizenship. Her
account also makes evident the fact that the practice of photography and the exercise of the civil gaze
have the potential to make visible the conditions under which these populations live, and thus to start
shifting some of those conditions. As she defends, it is necessary to reconsider the importance of the
civil as that aspect that allows us to relate to others in ways that are not regulated by the nation-state.
The civil dimension allows us to see, relate and participate with others beyond the divisions between
citizens and non-citizens.

41
I believe that Azoulay’s proposal of a ‘civil imagination’ can be extended beyond the field of
photography to the other arts and, in particular, to community and socially engaged arts such as Co-
Creation projects. Her concept of ‘civil imagination’ as a skill that leads us to take interest in, solidarity
and responsibility towards others and our coexistence implies that there is no clear-cut distinction
between the realms of politics, of ethics and the arts. This blurring of the dividing lines between ethics,
politics and the artistic is one of the central ideas guiding all Co-Creation projects. In the next section
I will argue how Azoulay’s ‘civil imagination’ relates to what some scholars in the area of community
and socially engaged arts and activism call ‘artistic citizenship’, which is the commitment to
collaborative artistic ventures that aim to create positive synergies among participants, such as the
projects adhering to the principles of Co-Creation seek to produce.

Civil imagination and artistic citizenship

In their book Artistic Citizenship. Artistry, Social Activism and Ethical Practice (2016), Elliot et al
maintain that the idea that art has intrinsic value regardless of its social, political or ethical implications
is a misled idea that has its origin in the 18th century European thesis that art should only be
concerned with art, that is, the notion of ‘art for art’s sake’. According to these authors, this notion ‘is
implausible and irresponsible, leading us to trivialize or marginalize some of art’s most powerful
contributions to our shared humanity. Social/ethical responsibility lies at the heart of responsible
artistic practice’ (Elliot et al, 2016: 3). For them, it is important to recognise art’s role in improving
people’s lives at local levels but also at regional and international levels, because from its beginnings
this has been art’s purpose and the source of its value. Music and musical practices, for instance, have
proven to be crucial in promoting bonding and social cohesion. They then conclude that the value of
art ‘is a function of what it is good for the uses to which it is put’ (Elliot et al, 2016: 6). This view entails
a utilitarian conception of art, which is clearly at odds with the view that art is valuable for its own
sake, that art is intrinsically valuable. I will not pursue this debate here, but I believe the view advanced
by Elliot et al is useful in understanding the role that art plays in society and, especially important for
my argument here, the civil dimension that all the arts have.

Alongside this utilitarian position about what makes art valuable, the authors hold three assumptions
concerning the nature of art. First, that art is a social and collective venture: ‘the arts are made by and
for people, living in real worlds, involving conflicts […] As such, the arts are also invariably
embodiments of people’s political and ideological beliefs; understandings and values, both personal
and collective’ (Elliot et al, 2016: 5). It is for this reason, the authors say, that artistic enterprises
involve a particular kind of civil commitment, which entails actively taking part in them with a focus
on the social goods they foster. This connects with the second assumption regarding art’s nature: since
the arts are linked to collective life and founded on social experience, and since they cultivate social
goods, the value and importance of the arts stems from how effectively they attain the goods they
intended to achieve. Finally, the third assumption is that given that the arts are social practices that
make significant contributions on the political, cultural, ideological, spiritual and economic areas of
human lives, they should be conceptualised and practiced as exemplifications of an ‘ethically guided
citizenship’ (Elliot et al, 2016: 6).

Following from the thesis that the arts are forms of an ethically guided citizenship, the authors propose
the concept of ‘artistic citizenship’, by which they mean an artistic practice that is inextricably linked
with a set of social, civic, humanitarian and emancipatory responsibilities, and with a general

42
commitment to the promotion of social goods. This artistic practice is inclusive and non-elitist in the
sense that all participants (young or old, professional or amateur) are considered artists making a
contribution within an art project that has as main purpose of bringing positive changes to people’s
lives:

Whereas artistic proficiency entails myriad skills and understandings, artistic citizenship
implicates additional commitments to act in ways that move people – both emotionally
and in the sense of mobilizing them as agents of positive change. Artistic citizens are
committed to engaging in artistic actions in ways that can bring people together, enhance
communal well-being, and contribute substantially to human thriving. (Elliot et al, 2016:
7)

The concept of artistic citizenship requires that there is no separation between the realms of politics,
the aesthetics and also the realm of ethics insofar as this artistic practice is aimed at promoting social
goods and communal improvement, and it is open to everyone regardless of their technical skills or
artistic experience. This artistic practice involves interactions and exchanges through collective art
projects that seek to make changes in social realities for the benefit of all. As Bowman puts it:

[New] forms of cooperation, community, or citizenship need to [emerge]. Chief among

these […] may be artistic practices, shaped by and devoted to civic responsibility: ethical
resources that benefit not just artists but all who acknowledge the need for such
resources and engage with them seriously. It is vital to the well-being of any social
collective that members care about and commit to the well-being of that community—
that there be a strong sense of belonging […] The arts are potent influences for shaping
character, identity, membership, and belonging. Artistic citizens acknowledge those
influences and seek to use them responsibly. (Bowman, 2016: 77)

Thus, ‘artistic citizenship’ implies a capacity to imagine a different state of affairs as well as a
commitment to actively contributing to the betterment of the community. This capacity is no different
from the skill of ‘civil imagination’ of which Azoulay speaks, which involves the creation of political
and ethical relations beyond those sanctioned by nation-state. In this sense, ‘civil imagination’ and
‘artistic citizenship’ are concepts that are deeply connected and require each other to be understood
and conceptualised.

The civil skill of imagining a completely different sociopolitical order implies dissenting from a social
order that establishes inclusions and exclusions and seeks to maintain them, and this is something
that the artistic citizen aims to do. The implications of what this civil skill means might be clearer if we
turn to the work of Jacques Rancière. He affirms that the social order, which he calls the ‘order of the
police’ (Rancière, 2010: 139), constitutes a set of conventions and implicit rules that divide a

43
community into groups, assign the positions and functions that each individual within a society must
occupy and fulfil, and hence separate ‘those who take part from those who are excluded’ (Rockhill,
2004: 3). It is worth noting here that what Rancière means by the notion of the ‘police’ is thus different
from what we ordinarily refer to by this term. The assignation of roles and functions of individuals in
the society – and hence, their separation – in turn presupposes a certain ‘distribution of the sensible’,
‘a prior aesthetic division between the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, the
sayable and the unsayable’ (Rockhill, 2004: 3). According to Rancière, politics essentially constitutes
opposition to and subversion of the order of the police by those who have been excluded, with the
intention of producing equality and a reconfiguration of the distribution of the sensible, that is, a new
partition of the sensible: ‘politics invents new forms of collective enunciation; it reframes the given by
inventing new ways of making sense of the sensible, new configurations between the visible and the
invisible [...] new distributions of space and time – in short, new bodily capacities’ (Rancière, 2010:
139). Politics in this sense involves an understanding that the current socioolitical order is not
necessary but arbitrary, and that the exclusions and inclusions that this order establishes can
therefore be challenged by those who have been excluded.

It is important here to say that both Rancière and Azoulay think that the realms of aesthetics and
politics are not mutually exclusive, and that therefore art can be political. The difference between
these two thinkers resides in what Azoulay understands as the ‘political’ and what Rancière calls
‘politics’. Whereas for Azoulay all of our engagements and exchanges with others are public and thus
political, for Rancière politics only takes place at the very specific moment and event when there is a
redistribution of the sensible, when there is a disruption of the current social order. I believe that ‘civil
imagination,’ as presented by Azoulay, constitutes a skill that can lead to a new distribution of the
sensible. Understood in Rancière’s way, politics as the effort to reconfigure the partition of the
sensible in the name of equality, politics as resistance to the established social order of exclusions and
inclusions, coincides with the skill of ‘civil imagination’, which outlines a new horizon of civil relations
that blur the dividing lines between those who take part and those who have no part. It is in this sense
that is possible to affirm that ‘civil imagination’ and ‘artistic citizenship’ have the potential to lead to
a new partition of the sensible. I will now explain in what sense Co-Creation fosters ‘civil imagination’
and ‘artistic citizenship’.

Co-Creation as key to promote civil imagination

As a collaborative art-based and creative practice aimed at creating synergies among equal
participants and thereby promoting more cohesive urban spaces, Co-Creation is a methodology that
puts into practice both the exercise of ‘civil imagination’ and the formation of ‘artistic citizenship’. The
active participation of academics, artists, policy makers and community members in such projects as
equals, without a single leading or authoritative figure, allows for a platform where everyone makes
a significant contribution to the collective work regardless of their particular artistic or technical skills,
but also regardless of their actual citizenship status. This means that Co-Creation facilitates the
formation of relationships based on respect, trust, solidarity and partnership with a view towards
producing a creative or artistic piece, which will contribute to make visible their conditions of exclusion
and eventually, through this process, start making positive changes within the community. In this
sense, Co-Creation practices promote the construction of ‘artistic citizenship’. The question of

44
whether the artistic quality of the outcome produced is relevant or even necessary for Co-Creation
seems to be beyond the point because, as mentioned before, what is a stake for all Co-Creation
projects is the opening of a space where all voices are equally heard and valued, where there is no
one single participant that takes prevalence over others or that can claim exclusive ownership of or
benefit from the artistic-creative outcome generated. Furthermore, if Co-Creation entails the
activation of the skill of civil imagination and the exercise of the civil gaze, then the expert artist gaze
or the professional gaze is displaced, and instead what acquires relevance is the gaze that is centred
on the creative process as a whole, on the connections developed through it and on the steps that led
to the final outcome. Hence, what is at stake for Co-Creation is the configuration of a platform where
relationships of solidarity and respect are built, and not so much the artistic value of the work
produced.

Similarly, through sharing knowledge, skills and through producing collective artworks or creative
products, Co-Creation also provides participants with opportunities to create their own stories and
narratives, as well as to become aware of their potential to reappropriate their own space and thus,
eventually, claim rights as a community. The involvement of members of a community in a creative or
artistic project following the principles of Co-Creation, allows them not only to develop a certain
artistic-creative skill but also to become aware that they too can tell their own narratives that differ
from and contest official discourses and stereotypes. By resourcing their creative potential and
configuring a space where participants are encouraged to construct their own narratives through
inclusive artistic-creative practices, the potential for agency of these people and their communities is
enhanced. In formulating their own narratives and refusing the discourses that have been imposed
from outside, by the ruling social order, Co-Creation projects constitute exercises of civil imagination
and can as well become the stepping stone towards the reconfiguration of the distribution of the
sensible, as understood by Rancière. Indeed, being able to tell their own narratives and histories
enables the stakeholders to express their claims and interests in their own terms and, in turn, this
leads these communities to build strong bonds and a sense of community that could ultimately help
them resist and fight against their oppressed conditions. Therefore, the methodology of Co-Creation
fosters civil imagination, and ultimately contributes to the creation of an artistic citizenry.

One could question here if this understanding of Co-Creation is not too idealistic or utopic. However,
it is worth noting that it is not my claim that Co-Creation projects are able to dissolve all social
disparities, destroy hierarchies and eliminate injustices. Instead, my view is that Co-Creation opens up
a horizon of possibilities that operate as a guideline, a blueprint, towards which we can direct our
efforts. Producing the conditions of possibility for the skill of civil imagination to be put into action and
an artistic citizenship to be configured constitutes the first step towards questioning and shifting the
conditions of inequality. It is this first step that Co-Creation aims to achieve. As other chapters in this
book will discuss, Co-Creation projects can be more or less successful at attaining this first step. But
by setting the conditions for the equal contribution of all participants and by encouraging the constant
discussion and assessment of the artistic-creative outcomes to be produced, Co-Creation projects
always remain open to adjustments and improvements.

References:

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Azoulay, A. (2012) Civil Imagination. A Political Ontology of Photography, Translated by Louise
Bethlehem, London and New York: Verso.

Azoulay, A. (2008) The Civil Contract of Photography, Translated by Rela Mazali and Ruvik Danieli,
Brooklyn, NY: Zone Books.

Bowman, W.D. (2016) ‘Artistry, Ethics and Citizenship’, in D.J. Elliot, M. Silverman and W.D. Bowman
(eds) Artistic Citizenship. Artistry, Social Responsibility and Ethical Practice, New York: Oxford
University Press, pp 59–80.

Elliot, David J, Silverman, Marissa and Bowman, Wayne D. (2016) ‘Artistic Citizenship. Introduction,
Aims and Overview’, in D.J. Elliot, M. Silverman and W.D. Bowman (eds) Artistic Citizenship.
Artistry, Social Responsibility and Ethical Practice, New York: Oxford University Press, pp 3–
21.

Meade, R. and Shaw, M. (2007) ‘Editorial. Community Development and the Arts: Reviving the
Democratic Imagination’, Community Development Journal, 42(4): 413–21.

Moore, J. (1998) ‘Poverty and Access to the Arts: Inequalities in Arts Attendance’, Cultural Trends,
8(31), 53–73.

Rancière, J. (2010) ‘The Paradoxes of Political Art’, in J. Rancière Dissensus. On Politics and Aesthetics.
Translated by Steven Corcoran, London and New York: Continuum, pp 134–51.

Rockhill, G. (2004) ‘Translator’s Introduction. Jacques Rancière’s Politics of Perception’, in J. Rancière

The Politics of Aesthetics. The Distribution of the Sensible, Translated with and Introduction
by Gabriel Rockhill, London and New York: Continuum, pp 1–6.

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FOUR

Global North-South tensions and hierarchies in international Co-Creation projects

José Luis Gázquez Iglesias

Introduction

Co-Creation as a collaborative approach to knowledge production brings together a diverse range of

participants and uses art to drive out knowledge and challenge existing hierarchies and
preconceptions. While some Co-Creation practices can remain entirely local, many involve North-
South encounters either occurring between participants of international workshops or taking the form
of conflicts between different traditions of knowledge production specific to the ‘Global North’ and
the ‘Global South’. In addition, hegemonic representational practices inherited from colonisation may
be present in Co-Creation practices involving marginalised urban populations stigmatised for
originating from the Global South.

It is possible to trace processes of predominant knowledge production (those of the Global North)
back to the fifteenth century when Spanish and Portuguese explorers ‘discovered’ new geographies
and peoples that were to be subjected by military force. This subjection was largely justified by the
emerging Enlightenment reasoning as the main discourse establishing the right of European nations
to dispose of societies considered backward, pre-modern or unable to produce their own knowledge.
It has been argued for instance that the rise of colonial anthropology both preceded and coincided
with the expansion of European colonisation of Africa (Moore, 1993 and Gruffydd, 2013). Since then,
Western knowledge about non-European societies has been characterised mainly by creating
hierarchical, dichotomising and classificatory categories in order to justify attempts to control and
dominate them. In this sense, the Global North-South divide is the result of evolving categories
according to changing historical contexts (the terminological shift from ‘Uncivilised World’ to ‘Third
World’ and more recently to ‘Global South’ illustrates well this ‘evolution’) without seriously
questioning the processes that produced and naturalised these kinds of representations of the world
and the structures of inequality that they imply.

This chapter seeks to address the challenges that Co-Creation, as a methodology that aspires to be
empowering and emancipating, is likely to encounter in contexts of urban exclusion in cities of both
the ‘Global South and North’. In fact, social exclusion linked to the colonial experiences of the past is
not limited to urban spaces pertaining to formerly colonised countries but is also strongly related to
contemporary migration and integration processes of their populations into former metropolitan
cities.

While not all Co-Creation workshops are international – several chapters in this book actually deal
with cases that only involve participants from the same context – an important challenge specific to
international Co-Creation workshops is the asymmetric relation between the actors involved.
International researchers (of both Northern or Southern countries) and members of NGOs mostly
based in the North are often more mobile and therefore able to participate in multiple contexts and
activities held in Northern and Southern cities. While one may think that being born in a ‘Southern’

47
country like Mexico and working as a scholar at the National Autonomous University would
automatically place the author of this chapter in a ‘Southern’ role within the workshop framework,
this is not necessarily the case. National universities are in fact institutional products of Northern
knowledge and scientific systems and cosmopolitan spaces rather than communitarian ones. This is
important because even if the resources for mobility are more limited for researchers coming from
these universities, they allow scholars to travel and participate in more activities of the project than
people from local communities where interventions take place. Actors representing marginalised
communities on the contrary seem to play leading roles at the local level only since their participation
remains very limited or even inexistent in Co-Creation activities organised outside their home
countries. This chapter argues that while international Co-Creation workshops can produce
empowering experiences that allow certain members of marginalised communities in global cities to
challenge stigmatising representations made of them, they also run the risk of producing ephemeral
results only and failing to disrupt representational hegemonic practices in the long term due to the
unequal relationships between participants.

The Global North-South paradigm and the Co-Creation framework

The Global North-South paradigm, which divides and classifies countries of the world in terms of their
economic development, is the result of colonisation and the evolution of economic and political
thought that emerged to explain and justify it (Said, 1978). While this theoretical development
accounts mainly for the nineteenth-century processes of subjection of non-Western societies by
European powers and the dichotomising structures of knowledge that it produced, it is possible to
track the path leading to the creation of the North-South divide to the decade of the 1960s when most
of the countries of the former colonial world gained political independence and the question of their
future development was posed in the first place.

This was the context out of which modernisation theory emerged pretending both to diagnose the
situation of these countries and to provide them with a blueprint towards progress (Cohn, 2011).
Promoting liberal principles, modernisation theory suggested that the adoption of open markets and
liberal economic policies would allow emerging and poor countries to “catch up” with the more
developed ones. Another important tenet of this theory was the belief that the elimination of
backward “traditional” elements in these societies was also necessary for achieving modernisation.

When economic development did not occur after the implementation of these policies, theoretical
thought concerning the development of poor countries was re-oriented toward the elaboration of the
Dependency Theory. Given the historical context that gave birth to postcolonial states and the
vulnerability of most of them when they obtained formal political independence, the Dependency
Theory argued that the under-development of ‘peripheral’ countries is a product of the development
of ‘central’ ones (Frank, 1967). It is also important to note that a decade before the emergence of
Dependency Theory, a new category had emerged for referring to poor countries: the concept of the
‘Third World’. At the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, economic theory and thought had to
redefine their conceptual apparatus to adapt it to the new world order dominated exclusively by
capitalism. This is how categories such as the North and South and the divide between them rose at
this juncture, trying to produce a new framework suitable to describe the new world order.

48
Nevertheless, the North-South paradigm inherited much of the structural character of its predecessors
such as the Dependency Theory and the World-System Theory in terms of the binary world view they
proposed.

In fact, what must be stressed about these theorising processes describing international structures
since the colonisation of the Americas and later of Asian and African societies is not only their
Eurocentric nature but also the constitutive and productive character of such representations. More
recently, it has been argued that the Global South perspective is a more enabling one than previous
categorisations like ‘Third World’ or ‘Developing Countries’ and better suited to resist hegemonic
forces (Duck, 2016).

In this sense, it is important to focus on the intellectual mechanisms that have not only created the
categories of Global North and South and the system of classifications that determines which countries
belong to which category, but which has also configured the nature of these categories and rules the
way they interact with other categories within and between themselves. As numerous authors have
shown (Seth, 2013; De Sousa Santos and Meneses, 2009; Chakrabarty, 2000; Mignolo and Walsh,
2018), there has been a direct implication of Western science, knowledge systems and institutions not
only in the development of theories and paradigms of international relations to which the creation of
these categories has been attributed but also in the production of international society itself. As Doty
states:

Arguably one of the most consequential elements present in all of the encounters between
the North and the South has been the practice(s) of representation by the North of the
South. By representation I mean the ways in which the South has been discursively
represented by policy makers, scholars, journalists, and others in the North.

Thinking of North-South relations in terms of representation reorients and complicates the

way we understand this particular aspect of global politics. North-South relations become
more than an area of theory and practice in which various policies have been enacted and
theories formulated; they become a realm of politics wherein the very identities of peoples,
states, and regions are constructed through representational practices. Thinking in terms of
representational practices calls our attention to an economy of abstract binary oppositions
that we routinely draw upon and that frame our thinking. Developed/underdeveloped, ‘first
world’/‘third world,’ core/periphery, metropolis/satellite, advanced industrialized/less
developed, modern/traditional, and real states/quasi states are just a few that readily come
to mind. While there is nothing natural, inevitable, or arguably even useful about these
divisions, they remain widely circulated and accepted as legitimate ways to categorize
regions and peoples of the world. (Doty, 1996: 2)

A central feature of this domination by reference to hegemonic discursive and representational

practices is the idea of the South not being able or not being capable of autonomous development
without assistance or guidance of the North (Doty, 1996).

49
Of course, as stated before, authors belonging to the Postcolonial Theory tradition have engaged since
the 1980s with a theorising process of deconstructing and contextualising the categories through
which international society has been built. There have been, however, since the last decade important
developments around this issue. Not only has Postcolonial Theory demonstrated the ‘provincial’ origin
of the discipline but has also posited that:

Postcolonial theory has at its heart an epistemological concern, namely to question the
universality of the categories of modern social scientific thought, and of the disciplines into
which it is divided; it is an epistemological challenge to, and a critique of existing disciplines
including IR. For the insistence upon centrality of colonialism in the making of the modern
world has, as its theoretical correlate, a call for rethinking the categories through which we
have hitherto narrated and understood that history. The categories of civil society, state,
nation, sovereignty, individual, subjectivity, development and so on, emerged in the course
of seeking to think through and understand a particular slice of history, that of the region of
the world we now know as ‘Europe.’ (Seth, 2013:2)

Nevertheless, this effort has remained astonishingly shy with respect to the construction of the
International Relations mainstream theoretical body, which remains largely a Eurocentric, Anglo-
Saxon product.

Assuming as a point of departure continuity in the existence of representational hegemonic practices

at the local level of international relations whether occurring in Global North or Global South cities,
this chapter questions the potential of the artistic-led/mediated approach that the Co-Creation
methodology proposes in different contexts of socioeconomic exclusion. In other words, the goal of
this chapter is to explore whether this kind of intervention helps to break or mitigate stigmatising
representations based on binaries or if, on the contrary, they contribute to reproducing or reinforcing
them in spite of their stated objectives.

In order to understand the issue of contemporary urban exclusion in large metropolises in the ‘Global
South’, it is necessary first to situate it in the particular histories of colonisation of those countries.
Whether in Latin America, Africa or Asia, the presence of Europeans implied the construction of dual
urban development projects consisting of a neat separation between the residential and bureaucratic
buildings of the representatives of the colonial power and administrations and the space reserved for
the ‘natives’.

The crucial question here is whether Co-Creation initiatives intervening in contexts of social exclusion
or stigmatisation are different from previous altruistic practices, most noticeably that of international
cooperation carried out by Western actors claiming to contribute to the ‘development’ of less
advanced nations. It is important to acknowledge that one of the most important legacies of the
Enlightenment Reason and Western thought is this hierarchical classification of non-European
populations and societies. The work of the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said (1978), who argued
that the construction of Orientalist knowledge was more an issue of creating a cultural other in the

50
process of construction of the Western identity, represents a good example of how these
representational structures have been put at work since then. In this sense, while it is necessary to
take into consideration the diversity of historical contexts derived from the colonial experience in
America, Asia or Africa, ‘the racial signifier was always an essential and even constitutive structure of
what would become the imperial project’ (Mbembe, 2017: 62).

Challenging social exclusion and stigmatisation: Santa Marta and Co-Creation methodology

According to Diouf, the study of urban processes in zones of social exclusion and stigmatisation is
dominated by two contradictory conceptions. On the one hand, pessimistic conceptions focus on
socioeconomic crises and the dysfunctional character of cities and neighbourhoods, while on the other
hand, optimistic studies celebrate popular creativity in informal urban practices. While the former
approaches focus on capitalist development, political analysis and state intervention, the latter are
committed largely to studying the on-going effects of colonialism and to explore how urban spaces
are constantly being recreated or reshaped by a diversity of practices and actors that contest and
redefine the public space moving away from official administrative and nationalist narratives (Diouf,
2013). Adopting the latter view of urban processes, the goal in this section is to reflect on the
interaction between actors (and their changing roles or hierarchy status) taking part in a Co-Creation
intervention in a global urban context of social exclusion. The underlying assumption here is that the
framework proposed by Co-Creation engages participants in interaction and creative activities and
enables them to express different perspectives about the most pressing local issues. By doing this, it
challenges negative representations about the community and its exclusion from the rest of the city
and produces empowering or emancipatory effects.

In order to be able to discuss whether (local and international) actors involved in Co-Creation
international workshops can produce alternative perceptions of marginalised communities through
their interaction, some background information about the Co-Creation project’s pilot case study in Rio
de Janeiro needs to be provided first (see also Chapters 2, 5 and 15).

The workshop took place over five consecutive days in August 2019 in Santa Marta, a favela of 4000–
6000 inhabitants located in the Botafogo neighbourhood in southern Rio de Janeiro. As with many
other informal urban communities, it was founded during the first half of the twentieth century by
migrants coming from the interior of Brazil and, since then, has undergone a process of insertion (both
formal and informal) into the urban landscape of Rio de Janeiro (Duarte Aquistapace, 2018; Perlman,
2010). Even if the quality of life and services has improved over the last decades, Santa Marta and
other favelas are still experiencing urban exclusion and social inequalities with respect to the city as a
whole.

As for the Co-Creation workshop, it consisted of a five-day programme addressing several topics
related to urban inequalities and stigmatisation such as tourism in the favela, public policies, cultural
and artistic representations, sports and leisure activities. Actors participating in the workshop included
international researchers from both Northern and Southern universities, NGOs from the Global North,
as well as members of local NGOs and associations and some other members of the community.
Although the programme of activities was set up and designed by a local community leader, Itamar

51
Silva (see chapter 15), the principles guiding the collective activities were suggested by European
researchers and NGOs and Latin American academics as well. These principles included equality,
respect, ethics, and engagement to produce shared meanings and collective knowledge about urban
development and representations of the favela. While these were the main issues discussed between
participants of the workshop, the Co-Creation tools employed to materialise the shared knowledge
were photovoice and affective mapping (Flatley, 2008). Both activities were carried out collectively
between the researchers, NGO members from the Global North, and the local association (Eco). The
photovoice activity was designed by a young researcher from the local university who was familiar
with this method.

Photovoice methodology has been in use since the middle of the 1990s in social research for
enhancing representations of actors in a specific context (Nykiforuk et al, 2011). It was originally
proposed as a research technique mixing narrative and image. The main goals were ‘enabling people
to record and reflect their community’s strengths and concerns, to promote critical dialogue and
knowledge about important issues through large and small group discussion of photographs and to
reach policymakers’ (Wang and Burris, 1997). Since then, photovoice has gradually increased its
validity as a social research tool (especially community-based participatory research CBPR) to reveal
community perceptions. In fact, the main value of photovoice could be found in the blurring effect
that is produced in the role of actors participating in a Co-Creation intervention context. From the
community members’ perspective, active engagement with the intervention allows them to think of
themselves as valuable members of the research team and, from the researcher perspective, it can
allow the detection of alternative voices and narratives that could help to break or to mitigate
stereotyped binary or negative representations of the community and its members.

In fact, it is possible to argue that one of the most noticeable results of employing photovoice is the
detection of the ambiguous and changing roles played by the ensemble of actors participating in the
Co-Creation interventions and the possibility of developing alternative ways of producing shared
knowledge during the running of the workshop. Thus, photovoice enables the expression of a plurality
of expressions about the meaning of inclusion in urban landscapes divided by spatial and symbolic
borders.

In the case of the photovoice and mapping activities, it could be said that both work as complements
to the other. In fact, while the mapping dynamic was present during the visit of the favela with the
tourist guides allowing the emergence of an interactive collective dialogue about places in the favela,
in the case of the photovoice the mapping dynamic was a pre-requisite for the creation of a shared
understanding of certain problematic issues and spaces of the favela such as garbage collection or
incomplete urban projects undertaken by the state but abandoned due to political cycles and changes
in office.

As a result of carrying out collective activities using these two techniques along with political listening
(Bassel, 2017), it could be argued that they allow for a better understanding of the community and its
social dynamics beyond common places and stereotypes. The case of political listening is particularly
significant because of the great subversive potential it carries as it demands an inversion of roles
between the usual speaker and the usual listener and thus enables more participation of the usual
subaltern voices of marginalised communities. However, it must be stated that these views do not
represent an overall homogeneous vision of the community itself but only of the local stakeholders

52
and organisations such as Escola Bola, the tourist guide collective, Brasilidade, the Residents
Association, the samba squad and Grupo Eco, or more precisely of their leaders. In this sense it would
be misleading to think that methodologies such as Co-Creation automatically enable channels of
participation for all the members of the particular community where it is deployed. While collective
co-creative outcomes are achievements in themselves, providing a better understanding of conditions
and factors of exclusion, it could be argued that they are limited in terms of representation of the
diversity of social actors of a given community because local participants were mainly community
leaders and stakeholders like the tourist guides association or the key local partner of the project,
Grupo Eco.

As mentioned before, Co-Creation workshops contemplate several kinds of actors: researchers from
Northern and Southern universities, representatives from NGOs of the North, members of local NGOs
representing communities targeted for intervention, and artists from both the North and the South.
For the purposes of this chapter, these actors could be grouped together into two groups:
‘international participants’ and ‘local participants’. The first would be composed of researchers,
representatives of Northern NGOs, and Northern artists while the second group would be composed
of local artists and members of local NGOs representing the communities of intervention.

While all actors involved in the Co-Creation workshop were supposed to participate in their initial
roles, all of them had to adapt their visions and particular interests to the principles of the
methodology. In this sense, all participants had to live the duality inherent to adopting the group’s
agenda and their individual interests and thus also becoming a parameter through which it could
become possible to evaluate Co-Creation by posing the question of whether there is a degree of
subversion of dominant narratives and representations or not.

Finally, to become an innovative methodology generating a specific kind of knowledge with

measurable impact across countries, cities and populations, Co-Creation has to accomplish a central
task, which involves the narrowing down of its own definition. In this sense, the question that arises
is whether Co-Creation workshops should be standardised in terms of the actors involved and
methodologies deployed or if they should allow more flexibility in their design and more room for
improvisation during its execution. While mapping and photovoice were the privileged collective
techniques of producing participatory knowledge, other artistic and creative tools could and should
have been integrated into the framework of Co-Creation such as poetry, graffiti, digital art, and so on.
While these were present during the Santa Marta workshop, they were limited to illustrations of the
themes discussed and the artists involved were not all from the local community. Related to this, a
still-unresolved issue in the definition of Co-Creation parameters concerns the number of actors
involved in each category of participant. As the identities and roles of the participants tend to become
blurred during the Co-Creation workshop, new questions could arise about the number and kind of
actors participating in it. A priori an equal number of international and local actors would be preferable
but, if one of the central aims of Co-Creation is levelling the interaction between international and
local marginalised communities, a greater number of the latter could imply a more equitable
interaction.

The most burning question that remains to be answered is less concerned with whether Co-Creation
leads to fairer representations and the inclusion of subaltern social actors, and more whether this
methodology empowers the whole community or only the actors involved in the intervention. Are

53
collective perceptions really constructed in a bottom-up fashion, synthesising multiple and diverse
visions or perspectives or is the process since its inception conditioned and undermined by the
traditionally vertical models of North-South cooperation and various other hierarchies including the
agendas of some community leaders rather than those of the community as a whole? In other words,
does Co-Creation become a vehicle of community empowerment or actor empowerment? While
photovoice and affective mapping are useful tools allowing the expression of multiple perspectives or
viewpoints, it remains an issue to verify if themes and issues discussed through this kind of collective
exercise are really a result of a bottom-up processes rather than representations of the particular
interests of the most prominent local stakeholders (Nykiforuk et al, 2011).

While theoretical and empirical links between artistic practice and urban development are not new,
what could be considered innovative in Co-Creation methodology and interventions compared to
other practices and methods derived from CBPR projects is the emphasis given to the ethical and
equitable principles and dimensions. Of course, the success of the future of Co-Creation interventions
in global cities will depend on the long-term engagement of all participants, local or international, with
the Co-Creation principles as a vehicle for countering misperception of disadvantaged
neighbourhoods stimulating social integration and cohesion in global cities of the twenty-first century.

Overall, it is not clear however whether this kind of collective creative practice will result in the
reproduction of the dominant knowledge structures (that is, the predominance of the epistemology
of the North) or, on the contrary, in the emergence of alternative narratives representative of the
agency of local participants. While the hybrid character of narratives emerging from this kind of
creative exercise is undeniable, measuring their impact beyond their temporal and geographical limits
is one of the most problematic issues of the Co-Creation project at large (this will be addressed in
chapter 17).

Actors’ identities and the Co-Creation experience: International actors and local actors involved in
Co-Creation workshops

A key benefit Co-Creation as an emancipatory methodology offers to marginalised communities lies

in its capacity to provide these populations with opportunities for enlarging their world views and
horizons and networks beyond their secluded urban spaces. As recorded by Clift, Silva and Telles in
this volume, the main challenge that residents of the favela working in the tourism industry are faced
with are the stereotypes they try to disrupt. They have done this primarily by establishing connections
with actors involved in developing community tourism in other favelas in Rio. While the local activists
and in particular the leader of Grupo Eco designed the programme of the Co-Creation workshop at
Santa Marta, the participation of these actors in other contexts comprised in the project H2020
remains limited. In this sense, it is possible to identify a highly mobile group of international
researchers and members of European NGOs that can participate in Co-Creation activities in multiple
contexts while the role of local actors belonging to marginalised communities is seriously limited by
the lack of economic resources that translates into lack of international mobility. Even if participation
of local actors is not limited to the activities of the workshop (the leader of Grupo Eco co-authored a
chapter in this volume), the fact that the great majority of residents of target communities do not
travel to other cities and countries where Co-Creation workshops and methodologies are deployed

54
restrains the impact the collectively produced knowledge could have had on them and their
communities in a broader context of cultural exchange.

Another ambivalent aspect of the Co-Creation workshop in Santa Marta in relation to the interaction
between local and international participants and the opportunities provided for overcoming
dichotomising identities and the predominance of Northern epistemologies is the language issue. On
the one hand, local participants had to adapt to the fact that most of the international participants
were not fluent in Portuguese and translation to English was needed during all the activities of the
programme. While this could be considered as proof of the continued predominance of Northern
epistemological frameworks in this context of interaction, it is important to mention that, on the other
hand, local participants were able to express their opinions and perspectives in their mother tongue
(Portuguese) and therefore were not restrained by their capacity to express themselves in a foreign
language even if the workshop provided the context for improving their skills in English.

Conclusion

This chapter intended in the first place to contextualise the theoretical model of the Global North-
South divide and the implications it has in terms of the relational structure between countries assigned
to each category and as a hegemonic representational practice that reproduces asymmetry and
domination. Given this context of interaction, the Co-Creation methodology is proposed as an
innovative approach with the aim of constructing alternative representational structures that build on
a world view of human co-belonging to the world rather than insisting in the reproduction of
asymmetric differences that provide the discursive context where the Global South is always subject
of intervention by the Global North.

Secondly, the analysis of the international workshop held at the favela of Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro
was an opportunity to illustrate the basic Co-Creation principles and provide examples of potential
methodological tools including the techniques of photovoice and affective mapping. It addressed Co-
Creation’s capacity to use these techniques for building shared meanings and collective knowledge
with the main goal of disrupting misperceptions and stereotypes that produce stigma and exclusion
of marginalised communities.

Finally, the chapter examined the roles and identities of participants in this kind of workshop and
explored whether or not the methodology empowers local actors or communities in the process of
producing shared collective, participatory knowledge.

As for possible recommendations that could enhance Co-Creation methodology and workshops in the
future, first and foremost it is important that project funding considers a greater implication of local
actors in the multiple international contexts were interventions are carried out. While it could be
argued that outcomes of individual Co-Creation experiences can open new perspectives on collective
knowledge production and effectively challenge misperceptions and negative visions of urban spaces
of exclusion or relegation in the short-term and the local level, impacts beyond these dimensions
remain limited. In fact, by promoting increased mobility among the local participants of workshops,
communitarian knowledge expressed during these events could be transformed into a cosmopolitan

55
one creating connections between members of stigmatised communities across borders. This could,
in turn, allow them to identify common problems and possible solutions on a greater scale and
participate in the process of knowledge production on a more equal basis. In other words, what would
be needed is to take favela knowledge out of the favela by its own producers.

In fact, if Co-Creation projects do not consider the problem of increasing mobility of marginalised
communities with the objective of enlarging their participation in them, they run the risk not only of
not being able to achieve their stated goals of reducing inequalities but would actually participate in
reinforcing them. In this sense, even if the workshops commit to the ethical principles that guide their
implementation, failure to include members of the neighbourhoods or communities within the
international dimension of the project would (re)produce hegemonic representational practices that
preclude the effective emergence of alternative epistemologies to the dominant North-South
paradigm. In other words, what Co-Creation needs to do in order to develop its full potential to reduce
inequalities – at least at the knowledge production level – is to foster international participation in
local communities to de-provincialise communitarian knowledge while at the same time
provincialising Western dominant paradigms through which reality has been studied and constituted.

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Chakrabarty, D. (2000) Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, NJ:
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Cohn, T. (2011) Global Political Economy, NY: Routledge.

De Sousa Santos, B. and Meneses, M-P. (2014) Epistemologías del Sur, Madrid: Ediciones Akal.

Doty, R. (1996) Imperial Encounters. The Politics of Representation in North-South Relations,

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Duarte Aquistapace, M. (2018) ‘Prácticas políticas de los sectores populares en Rio de Janeiro:
urbanización de la favela de Santa Marta’, Iconos. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, FLACSO-Ecuador, 61:
203–22.

Duck, L. (2016) ‘The Global South via the U.S. South’, Concepts of the Global South – Voices from
around the world, Global South Studies Center, University of Cologne, Germany, https://kups.ub.uni-
koeln.de/6399/1/voices012015_concepts_of_the_global_south.pdf

Diouf, M. (2013) Les arts de la citoyenneté au Sénégal. Espaces contestés et civilités urbaines, Paris:
Karthala.

Flatley, J. (2008) Affective Mapping. Melancholia and the Politics of Modernism, Cambridge,
Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press.

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Frank, A. (1967) Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, NY: NYU Press.

Gruffydd, B. (2013) “Slavery, finance and international political economy: postcolonial reflections,”
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Mbembe, A. (2017) Critique of Black Reason, Durham: Duke University Press.

Mignolo, W. and Walsh, C. (2018) On Decoloniality. Concepts, Analytics, Praxis, Duke: Duke University
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Moore, S.F. (1993) ‘Changing Perspectives on a Changing Africa,’ in R.H. Bates, V.Y. Mudimbe and J.F.
O’Barr (eds) Africa and the Disciplines. The Contributions of Research in Africa to the Social Sciences
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Nykiforuk, C.I.J., Vallianatos, H. and Nieuwendyk, L.M. (2011) ‘Photo-voice as a Method for Revealing
Community Perceptions of the Built and Social Environment’, International Journal of Qualitative
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Perlman, J. (2010) Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro, Oxford: Oxford
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Said, E. (1978) Orientalism, NY: Vintage.

Seth, S. (2013) Postcolonial Theory and International Relations. A Critical Introduction, NY: Routledge.

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Assessment’, Health, Education & Behavior, 24: 369.

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FIVE

Doing politics in times of uncertainty: Co-Creation, agency and the ontology of the city

Niccolò Milanese

When and where is Co-Creation a useful strategy? While the term comes originally from marketing
and business studies, it has been developed as a strategy in diverse economic, administrative,
governmental and artistic contexts, as part of what more generally has been called the 'usological'
turn (Wright, 2013). Each of these spheres into which Co-Creation is deployed has its own
discursive grammars, embedded teleologies, power struggles, and institutional dynamics and
part of the point of introducing Co-Creation as a method in these spheres is to displace, challenge
or transform these. What happens, then, if we deploy Co-Creation as a strategy or 'mot d'ordre'
for urban research? In a Co-Creation methodology, the individuals who could have been
conceived as the objects of research (through interviews, surveys, observation) are repositioned
instead as its co-creators. Together with this shift in authorship and authority, the form of
knowledge produced is also displaced and multiplied: the outputs of Co-Creation research may
include written articles, presentations, policy proposals and similar paradigmatic forms of
knowledge, but they would also include several 'embedded' forms of knowledge including
artworks that remain in the urban setting under study, the interpersonal connections and
networks created, the group dynamic and the empowerment of participants. These forms seem
to be further from theoretical knowledge, and closer to the kind of knowledge involved in what
has been called the 'imaginative dimension of society', or 'social imaginaries' by authors like
Cornelius Castoriadis (1987) and more recently Charles Taylor (2003). If we understand the city
not only as a material space of constructions but also as a lived symbolic space of relationships, it
is plausible to suggest that the Co-Creation methodology in an urban setting is involved in
restaging the interactions that partly produce the city itself and revealing forms of knowledge at
the same time as recreating the city through what aims to be a more egalitarian and empowering
process. Co-Creation thus intervenes in what Engin Isin (2002) has called the political space of
the city which arises from and mediates the material and symbolic spaces. This chapter will
suggest that Co-Creation is a useful methodology in contexts of political and social uncertainty,
and specifically in contexts where urban rescaling combined with geopolitical reordering in a
context of risk and unpredictability leads to the unity of the city itself coming into question. Co-
Creation is a useful strategy for research in such scenarios because it potentially recuperates a
civic capacity allowing participants to act as agents involved in the creation of the city, even when
formal kinds of political agency are weak or non-existent, without ignoring or foreclosing the
ambiguity, complexity and uncertainty of political outcomes and futures.

The strategic hypothesis of Co-Creation

The vision of the city as an oeuvre of citizens, intellectuals and artists has an obvious precursor in
the work of Henri Lefebvre, along with its attempt to reassert use-value in a context of the
dominance of exchange value (Lefebvre, 1996). Co-Creation as a research methodology could go
somewhat naturally in this direction, putting a stronger emphasis on the autonomy of 'creation'

58
than has become associated with Lefebvre's slogan 'right to the city', which perhaps lends itself
to legalistic and stato-centric interpretations (see Holston [2008 and 2009] and Lopes de Souza
[2010] for critical views). Seen in this way, using Co-Creation would imply making several strong
claims of different kinds: an epistemological claim that the city can be known through a process
of interactions between individuals; an ontological claim that the city is in some sense produced
by these relations; and normative political claims that the production of the city has become
alienated, and this alienation should be overcome by a specific form of practice which combines
intellectual, creative and practical collective work. The strength of these claims would depend on
how much we think can be explained, known or transformed using the methodology. After all,
even if social scientists are pressured into pretending that their methods can explain everything,
there is no need for any methodology to claim exclusivity and completeness.

Deploying Co-Creation as a slogan in an international comparative research context ostensibly

calls into question some of those presuppositions we have just identified as natural to it. First, the
comparative question: if the city is an oeuvre, is each city produced in broadly the same way, or
are there radically different creations of the city? This comparative question cannot be asked
today without also raising the issue of the interrelations between cities in a global context. This
leads inevitably to the question: if the city itself is an oeuvre, what about the (international)
relationships between cities? Do the relationships between cities – those relationships of spaces
– have the same kind of meaning as urban spaces? Are they created in the same way? Are they
knowable in the same ways? By asking these questions, we appear to be faced with the disjunction
between the 'everyday' subjective experience of urban space and its more impersonal 'structural'
processes and determinants: what is the articulation between these ways of approaching and
understanding the city? Variants of this question are familiar to all social sciences. Co-Creation as
a methodology does not so much avoid these dilemmas as reposition them as a practical reflexive
consideration of participants: 'what common space are we at once creating and creating in (or
being created by)?' and 'is there a discordance between these spaces?' are two questions
participants in Co-Creation need to ask.

Here again, a comparison with Lefebvre is useful. Lefebvre (1996: 187) positions his theory of
social space, The Production of Space, precisely as encompassing 'on the one hand the critical
analysis of urban reality and on the other that of everyday life.' He says that this 'analysis of the
whole of practico-social activities' shows an ensemble which 'has nothing to do with a system or
synthesis in the usual sense' but rather seeks

by trial and error where can be located in time and space the point of no return and of no
recourse – not on an individual or group scale, but on a global scale... It would be the
moment when the reproduction of existing relations of production would cease either
because degradation and dissolution sweep it away, or because new relations are
produced displacing and replacing old ones. The possibility of such a moment (a
perspective which does not coincide exactly with the usual theory of revolution) defines
a strategic hypothesis. It is not an indisputable and positively established certainty. It does
not exclude other possibilities (for example, the destruction of the planet). (Lefebvre,
1996: 186)

59
In this dense paragraph are encapsulated several of Lefebvre's most insightful conjectures, which
position the 'right to the city' firmly in a revolutionary perspective.

As Neil Brenner (1999 and 2000) has emphasised, The Production of Space explores the
'superimposition and interpenetration of social spaces' (1996: 342) in contemporary cities, in a
context of global urban rescaling driven by capitalist restructuring as capital seeks to free itself
from constraint or friction ('the annihilation of space through time', as Marx famously put it in
the Grundrisse [Marx, 1973, see Harvey 1990 for the classic urban theory exposition of this
notion]) and states struggle to attract, fix and reterritorialise it. 'Superimposition and
interpenetration' suggest that the 'global' does not intrude upon or crush the 'local' but rather
that hierarchies and relationships shift and recompose. The urban space becomes at once the
'milieu' and the 'enjeu' (stake) of contemporary sociopolitical struggle because the city is both
the site and target of rescaling processes, due to its historical centrality in the development of
capitalism and the density of connections and institutions concentrated in it. Lefebvre's strategic
hypothesis is that at some point soon the production model will no longer be tenable, and a
systemic change will take place.

This hypothesis is only partly sustainable today for us, even withholding judgement on its Marxist
character. On the one hand, the processes of scalar recomposition and the politics of space which
Lefebvre identified has accelerated to a point he most likely would have thought untenable.
Whereas in the 1970s, at least in the 'first world’, the Fordist model of production was still based
on the nation-state's capacity to organise production, alleviate sociospatial polarisation and
preserve social cohesion, today's highly financialised and multi-polar post-Fordist economy has
led to a situation in which single nation-states often struggle to stabilise or fix any spatial scale in
which to contain, regulate or direct global circulations, and rather constantly adapt, resize and
rescale territorial policies, priorities and geopolitical alliances in function of circumstances
largely out of their control. If we continue to use Marxist terms, we could say that the mode of
production has changed, or is in the process of changing, and has yet to find a settled new form,
unless that new form is precisely one of constant upheaval. This sense of constant upheaval is
surely part of what is referred to as 'globalisation' in everyday vernacular conversation.

On the other hand, against what Lefebvre may have predicted and hoped, the movements of urban
sociopolitical struggle 'from below' have not yet shown a capacity to reappropriate the means of
spatial production on anything other than a localised and temporary scale. Networks of some
cities may be taking a lead in terms of environmental policies, refugee welcome or housing
policies, but we are still far away from a situation where 'mayors rule the world' (to use the title
of Benjamin Barber's [2014] provocative book), or where cities challenge either the dominance
of global capital or the security prerogative of the nation-state.

Into this context of accelerated processes of global spatial re-organisation, what is the 'strategic
hypothesis' of Co-Creation as a methodology of urban research? It cannot be the announcing of
an alternative system, let alone anything about how that alternative might look, but rather that
the unity of the urban space is constantly in doubt and in some sense our common sharing of
space in the city is thereby constantly under threat; that the Co-Creation methodology can
modestly open up temporary spaces of collaboration in which the shifting shape and time of the
urban can be discerned, made accessible to knowledge. Another way of putting this is that the
questions 'who are we, co-creators?' and 'what common space(s) do we co-create (in)?' are both

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unavoidable, with at best temporary and provisional answers acutely sensitive to their own limits
(which means to say that the questions imply their inverse: 'who is not here, not part of Co-
Creation?', 'what space are we in which we do not co-create, over which we do not have agency?'
and 'which discontinuous spaces are we in? which spaces are we unable to make common?') The
experimental conjecture that needs to be tested is that by asking these questions in a specific kind
of way, practically and creatively as much as theoretically, we can gain agency rather than inertia.

A comparative urban research with an international dimension (as in the case of the Co-Creation
project) only accentuates the pertinence of these questions, but the questions would need to be
asked in any setting or scale, not so much because the economy or politics has become more
'global' recently but because economy and politics everywhere is going through a global re-
organisation which shows no signs of settling down into a stable form. In the next section of this
chapter, we will see how the deployment of Co-Creation as a strategic hypothesis in a specific
sociohistoric configuration leads unavoidably to the posing of these questions.

Co-Creation in a context of uncertainty: Europe, Mexico, Brazil in the late 2010s

The practical experience and application of Co-Creation as a methodology this chapter builds
upon comes from fieldwork looking into processes of urban marginalisation between mid-2018
and early 2019 in four 'world-cities': London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City. The choice of
these four cities comes partly from my own research interests, partly from the Co-Creation
project funded by the European Union – itself one of the most important actors involved in both
urban rescaling and geopolitical reordering processes – which connected partners based in these
cities and their respective zones of influence. In all four of the cities, during this time frame, the
'everyday experience' of space of many urban dwellers could not be disassociated from anxiety
concerning the future shape and place of the city, and therefore from wider concerns about
changing geopolitical contexts. Headline news in each of the cities in the research period touched
directly on questions of urban centrality, mobility, scale and change. Urban scholars have been
talking about urban rescaling in a context of geopolitical change for over three decades, but rarely
have such questions been so pervasive in news-cycles of multiple countries and in the everyday
concerns of residents. It is perhaps useful to recite some of these stories to emphasise the
sentiment not only of the 'return of history' but of the 'acceleration of history' that it provokes,
and to attempt to bring out at least some 'family resemblances' in terms of the kind of change
taking place between the different cities.

In London during this timeframe, public discussion was dominated by the relationship of the
United Kingdom to the European Union, following the referendum to leave the European Union
in 2016 and in the context of the ongoing negotiations as to the nature of this separation with
highly uncertain outcomes. It became an unavoidable subject to which all social and political
issues were related. Brexit was seen to have potentially enormous implications for the centrality
of the city of London to the regional economy of the European Union. To give examples as
indications of what seemed to be much more systematic processes of the relegation of London's
normative power on a regional scale, the European Medicines Agency was relocated from London
to Amsterdam during this period, and the European Banking Authority from London to Paris.
Simultaneously, discussions about whether London might reposition itself as a different kind of
global centre, with less regulation and taxes on capital, were underway. Asides from these

61
uncertainties concerning London's place in the world, everyone living in the country and UK
citizens living in the European Union had reason to be uncertain of the future of their rights to
move, to reside and to politically express themselves.

Paris, during this same period, in part as a historic rival to London, was seeking to reinforce itself
as a regional and global centre, but it simultaneously found itself beset by sociopolitical conflict
manifested in the 'gilet jaunes' movement from November 2018 onwards. This attracted global
media attention to the city, notably when violent clashes with the police broke out on the famous
Champs Elysées. This movement positioned itself as the uprising of those excluded from the
metropolitan centre, and the public debate over the legitimacy and limits of the movement was
intense. Through an astonishing coincidence, the Presidential response to a process of popular
consultation organised by the government to re-secure social cohesion was postponed and
overtaken by the fire at Notre-Dame on 15 April 2019, at 'kilometer' zero, in the very centre of
Paris historically and geographically, the day before President Macron was due to make his
announcements. This fire, followed live through media from throughout the world, led to a
renewed sense of fragility over the historical relationship between Paris as a national and global
centre and its peripheries.

Rio de Janeiro, during the same period, was experiencing high political uncertainty running up to
the October 2018 Presidential elections, with highly popular former President Lula attempting to
run as a candidate from prison but ultimately being disqualified, and then further uncertainty
following the election of hard-right nationalist Jair Bolsonaro. This change dramatically
influenced the prospects and outlook notably for those most at risk of social exclusion in Rio de
Janeiro: those living in favelas, Afro-descendants and indigenous populations, women and
LGBTIQ communities, all of whom were explicit targets of violent hate speech. In the run up to
the elections, the supporters of Bolsonaro attacked rallies held at universities in opposition to his
candidacy. Since election, the government of Bolsonaro has undermined universities through
cutting funding and continues to verbally attack the importance of scientific knowledge,
particularly in the humanities. The life and death of Marielle Franco, the murdered Rio councillor,
favela-born, educated at university, a lesbian herself and a campaigner for the rights of minorities
and against the clientelism, corruption and violence became during this time a myth or parable
by which many in Rio could interpret their historical circumstances. This parable was
dramatically represented in several of the Rio Carnival parades in March 2019, most notably that
of the samba school Mangueira, which won the competition. Like in Paris, fire was again an
internationally visible image of the country: the burning of the National museum in Rio in August
2018, and the burning of the Amazon rainforest both highly mediatised and politicised events
globally.

During this same period in Mexico City, uncertainty over the direction newly elected President
Andrés Manuel Lopes Obrador would take the country was significant. Elected in July 2018 and
taking office on 1 December 2018, Obrador promised a 'fourth transformation' of the Mexican
state, coming after Mexican independence, reform and revolution: the natural question many
people were asking was what direction and implications this transformation would have. In the
months preceding his formal investiture as President, Obrador announced that plans for a New
International Airport for Mexico City would be scrapped, following a referendum. This decision
had implications in terms of the international profile of Mexico City both as a transport hub and
a place of investment, and the manner in which the decision was taken led to a debate about

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government by direct democracy, its implications and risks of instrumentalisation. During this
period, an intense rhetorical attack on both Mexicans and specifically on migrants crossing the
Mexican border into the United States of America was being conducted by US President Donald
Trump, while simultaneously a trade deal between Mexico and the USA was being negotiated.
Simultaneously, the US military was touting the possibilities for intervention in Venezuela,
possibly using the Brazilian military as proxies, and sustained comparisons between Obrador's
anti-neo-liberal rhetoric and that of the failed Chavez regime in Venezuela were being made both
by domestic opponents of Obrador and by right-wing North American media, stoking anxiety both
about the course of action of the President and about how international neighbours might react
to it.

This necessarily incomplete and unsatisfactory run-though of some of the main news stories of
the period of research in the countries and cities under study is intended on the one hand to
illustrate the thickness of the context in which any process of Co-Creation will take place, but also
to make some general points about this particular configuration of cities at this time.

Firstly, the sense of historical uncertainty was common to all cities, albeit for different reasons.
In each city, there was a sense of the changing of an epoch, and this uncertain temporal horizon
inevitably has an influence on the way space is experienced. Secondly, the internationalised
character of each of the megacities under study – three of which are national capitals and one of
which is a former capital city – implied that the sense of space of their inhabitants was in a
complex tension between 'national' framing and 'international' framing: the meaning of living in
Paris, for example, was affected by the 'gilet jaunes' protests, not just for reasons which concern
national politics and social cohesion, but inextricably also because of the international
implications of the visibility of the protests and what it might imply for the future development
of Paris. Flames and fire – symbolically an antithesis and risk of urbanity – were internationally
visible images and symbols of both Paris and Brazil during the period.

Thirdly, the sense of crisis in the European cities under study was sufficiently visible
internationally that to some extent Europe was at once provincialised, made less dominant as a
role-model, and brought nearer to non-European cities: often in the exchanges not only with
other researchers but with regular inhabitants in Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City, there was a
sense that for all the enormous differences and inequalities, some similar problems were being
experienced in metropolitan Europe to those experienced in Brazil and Mexico, and that some
similar processes of political re-organisation were taking place (for recent context on Mexico City
see Parnreiter, 2015, on Brazil see Barcellos de Souza, 2016). Analyses of globalising cities show
network patterns of global centres, which cut across North/South divides, and in this network of
global centrality cities may experience promotion or demotion in various sectors and domains
(for empirical analysis see Taylor, P et al, 2011). The trajectory of London specifically in these
globalised networks is of significance at once for urban theory, for the social imaginary of its
inhabitants and for the social imaginary of citizens of other cities across the world: London has
been so central historically to processes of globalisation and the spatial politics of capitalism that
it is a paradigm city for urban studies in this area (for example Brenner, 1999, Sassen, 1991), as
well as being known by people across the world as a centre, that the risk of its peripheralisation
or demotion in capital centrality in the context of Brexit creates novel historical circumstances.

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Fourthly, while travelling between these cities and conducting Co-Creation workshops,
discussions and collaborations, the researchers participating in this research were inevitably
'carrying' this context with us: most intensely that context closest to where we normally live (in
my case Paris), but as the project went forward and we travelled from one city to the next,
increasingly as messengers and representatives of the contexts we were coming from and Co-
Creating in. This last point implies ethical and political responsibilities for the researcher, who by
having the freedom and privilege to travel between these contexts in a symbolic way could be
said to hold the 'keys to the cities' (much like honorary citizens are sometimes ceremoniously
given 'keys to the city'). The inequality of mobility rights and possibilities of different Co-Creation
participants, and the risk of imperial behaviours and epistemologies of those closest to centrality,
power and capital, need to be at the forefront of every researcher's mind, most importantly those
in privileged positions.

This rich world-historical and political context becomes an inescapable part of interpreting some
of the acts and exchanges experienced in the process of Co-Creation: approaching the questions
of 'who are we Co-Creators?' and 'what common space do we co-create in?' must be aware of this
context and the geopolitically uncertainty of everyday local city life. In order to give a specific
example, I will lastly consider one episode that took place within a Co-Creation workshop to
articulate the ways in which the methodology can concentrate ambiguities and vulnerabilities, is
sensitive to the fluid transformations in togetherness and otherness, and thereby can act as a deep
imaginative source of common cause or agency.

Urban space, threat space and common space

The episode occurred in the context of a workshop organised in the favela of Santa Marta, near to
the wealthy and embassy-lined streets of Botafogo in Rio de Janeiro in August 2018. The favela
has until recently had relatively low levels of violence as the first favela to undergo 'pacification'
in 2008, in advance of the global events hosted by the city: the football World Cup in 2014 and
the Olympics in 2016. Santa Marta is a case study in the spatiality of the 'grey-zone' that emerges
through the interaction of formal, informal and illegal economies in global-market dynamics, and
the ways different state and non-state actors – most notably the police, militias and the drugs
barons – attempt to intervene in these dynamics not so much to eradicate illegality or reinforce
legal forms of work, but to rebalance the benefits and profits of these arrangements between
different groups and interests, which includes politicians, residents, multinational companies,
global financial institutions and transnational crime rings (Valenzuela‐Aguilera, 2019).

In the recent months before the workshop, the levels of violent exchange between drugs gangs
and the Rio police had intensified, and walking around the favela it was easy to stumble across
visibly armed young men, who nevertheless did their best to stay out of sight, particularly of
'international' visitors and tourists. As part of the Co-Creation workshop, in a small group of five
people comprising three researchers coming from the UK and France, one Santa Marta resident
acting as a translator, and one younger resident involved in a local NGO, we explored the streets
of the favela conducting the exercise of taking street photographs which would represent what
we understood as representing key local issues (‘diagnostic photos’) and future opportunities
(‘possibility photos’) in the favela. In parallel, we endeavoured to have conversations with local
inhabitants about how they saw the future of the favela in terms of its development. In such

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conversations, the end of the Lula era and the uncertainty of what was to come next were constant
themes. We decided to knock on one door in a narrow street and started a conversation with a
resident who had recently moved to the area, explaining the overall aims of the research into the
future of the favela and where we had each come from. Very soon into the conversation, several
young armed men ran past, speaking hurriedly into their walkie-talkies, clearly on manoeuvres
which would imply either an armed confrontation with other drugs gangs or, much more likely, a
confrontation with the police. Quite naturally, the resident invited our group into her house to
take shelter, where we continued our conversation, other family members having noted the new
entrants to their house but continuing their previous activity. This simple act of humanity, an
everyday reflex for inhabitants, and which surely would have been shown to any stranger outside
of that door at that moment, no doubt responded to a reinforced sense of care for international
visitors. The space of Co-Creation thus suddenly changed, from the public street to the private
home, from the external city to the internal domestic space, at the initiation of someone who had
not been involved in the group or project of Co-Creation at all until that moment, but was now
acting at once as a host, a participant and a protector of the research project and those involved
in it. The public space suddenly became unsafe as a space for creative collaboration, because of
the changed activity of a set of actors who were previously present in the space but until that
point not threatening.

The resident who invited us into her house had already learnt where we were coming from and
had televisions, an internet connection, and newspapers in her house and a level of education
which would suggest that she would not be totally unaware of the contexts we were visiting from.
Our short conversation dealt with the favela itself, its cleanliness, her hopes for the future as a
new resident, and did not touch on any international matters, but those 'international' contexts
were present in the room through our presence, through the need for translation from
Portuguese into French (the common language of the group). Once we had made an assessment
that the sound of gunshot was no longer close, and that danger outside had abated, we took a
group decision to take a photograph of ourselves – including the husband of the resident, who
had not been involved in the conversation – in the mirror before leaving. Reunited with the larger
group of Co-Creation researchers, both local and international, later in the day, we decided that
this photograph would be used as the 'possibilities' photograph representing 'uncertainty but
hope' in the favelas for an exhibition.

The significance of this simple episode as part of a Co-Creation investigation is that the self-
reflexive nature of Co-Creation obliged a reflection on the changing space in which Co-Creation
was taking place (moving from the street to the home); a reflection on the changing composition
of the group involved in the common project (which came to include in a stronger way the
resident); and the changing roles of those individuals (from interviewee to host, from interviewer
to guest); a reflection on the place of individuals and groups external to the project, and the way
their actions changed the space and composition of Co-Creation participation (whether it be the
drugs gangs we encountered, the police they were most likely confronting, or the family members
of the resident who welcomed us in their home and continued their business); and the
development of a common project (all of us inside the home were in some sense committed to
continuing exchange, research and mutual learning). Each member of the group was more acutely
aware of the position of the other: the resident imagining the concerns of 'international' visitors,
the international visitors more acutely aware of the meaning of being a resident of that place.
Surely in this process of imaginative 'simulation' in understanding others (Heal, 2003), all kinds

65
of stereotypes and misconceptions continued to exist, but the episode started a process in which
such misconceptions could be discussed. Finally, the element of 'creation' in the methodology
meant that one of the means chosen to record, make communicable and knowable the shared
experience and the shared space created through the incident was through a collectively
composed photograph (a modest artistic product) in which we appeared as a group in a mirror,
as if to 'fix' the temporary unity in space we had created through our conversation.

The episode in Santa Marta favela had all its local specificities, but the actors involved, and the
context of Santa Marta itself, all have 'global' relations: the local is not eradicated by the global, it
is transformed, and the city as a lived space is transformed each time by actors coming to it and
interacting in it with their own histories, contexts and relationships. The episode shows that Co-
Creation can be used to make conscious the interaction of these relationships in changing urban
scales. If the episode involved a form of danger or risk which is not of the same degree as to be
found in other urban settings, this very present form of risk is a more extreme form of the threat
of violence, dissolution or lawlessness which is always the alternative to the social unity of the
city. What the episode shows is that in dealing with such risks, we recompose social unities and
that these social unities can be, and frequently are, irreducibly 'international' and do not map to
state borders. By self-consciously co-creating a new urban space, in a context of threat, we
recuperate an urban civic agency in contexts where we may have no formal political agency, and
where we are physically weaker actors than others. This urban civic agency has a quite different
character to the 'Hobbesian' solutions of overbearing sovereignty, which may otherwise be
tempting in such a situation of stasis (see Agamben, 2015). By finding ways of recording, drawing,
photographing or recounting such encounters which create shared spaces, we are contributing in
small ways to create common social imaginaries which are in their way insurgent against the
impersonal and structural violence and expulsion which Saskia Sassen (Sassen, 2014 and Kaldor
and Sassen, forthcoming) among others have analysed as a major phenomenon of the global
economy.

Therefore, in answer to our initial question of where and when Co-Creation is a useful strategy,
we can say that it is useful in urban contexts where the dynamics of change and of threat are
strong and disruptive, where multiplicities of different actors are involved in these dynamics, as
a way of small groups of researchers, inhabitants, artists and others becoming consciously aware
of their own individual and collective involvement in these dynamics, to collectively produce
forms of knowledge which recall the memory, the present and the future possibility of spaces of
their common civic agency.

References

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Columbia University Press.

Barber, B. (2014) If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities, New Haven: Yale
University Press.

Barcellos de Souza, M. (2016) The Spatial Rescaling of the Developmental State in Brazil, Mercator,
Fortaleza, 15(4): 27–46.

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Brenner, N. (1999) 'Globalisation as Reterritorialisation: The Re-scaling of Urban Governance in the
European Union', Urban Studies, 36(3): 431–51.

Brenner, N. (2000) 'The urban question as scale question: Reflections on Henri Lefebvre, Urban
Theory and the Politics of Scale', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 24(2): 361–
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Castoriadis, C., translated by K. Blamey, (1987) The Imaginary Institution of Society, Cambridge:
Polity and Blackwell.

Harvey, D. (1990) The Condition of Postmodernity, Oxford: Blackwell.

Heal, J. (2003) Mind, Reason and Imagination, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Holston, J. (2008) Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil,

Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Holston, J. (2009) 'Insurgent Citizenship in an Era of Global Urban Peripheries', City and Society,
21(2): 247–67.

Isin, E. (2003) Being political: Genealogies of citizenship, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Kaldor, M. and Sassen, S. (eds) (forthcoming 2020), Cities at War: Global Insecurity and Urban
Resistance, New York: Columbia University Press.

Lefebvre, H. (1991) trans. Nicholson-Smith, D. The Production of Space, Oxford: Blackwell.

Lefebvre, H. (1996) Writings on Cities, ed. and trans. Kofman, E. and Lebas, E., Oxford: Blackwell.

Lopes de Souza, M. (2010) 'Which right to which city? In defence of political-strategic clarity',
Interface: a journal for and about social movements, 2(1): 315–33.

Marx, K. (1973) Grundrisse: Foundations for the Critique of Political Economy, London: Penguin

Parnreiter, C. (2015) 'Strategic planning, the real estate economy, and the production of new spaces
of centrality. The case of Mexico City' Erdkunde, 66(1): 21–31.

Sassen, S. (1999) The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Sassen, S. (2014) Expulsion: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy Cambridge: Harvard
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Taylor, C. (2003), Modern Social Imaginaries Durham: Duke University Press.

Taylor, P., Ni, P., Derudder, B., Hoyler, M., Huang, J. and Witlox, F. (eds) (2011) Global urban analysis.
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Valenzuela‐Aguilera, A. (2019) 'The third circuit of the spatial economy: Determinants of public
policy in Latin America', Regional Sciences Policy and Practice, 2019: 1–13.

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Wright, S. (2013) Towards a Lexicon of Usership, Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum.

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SIX

Theorising the materiality of Co-Creation as a knowledge practice: Exploring onto-epistemological

questions

Annaleise Depper and Simone Fullagar

Introduction

In this chapter, we explore the possibilities and challenges posed by Co-Creation as a knowledge
practice that is more than a ‘novel method’ for addressing urban inequality, disadvantage and
territorial stigmatisation. Co-Creation is informed by a diverse range of disciplinary practices,
theoretical traditions and ways of collaborating with communities, artists and academics. The chapter
draws on examples from our own and others’ work that explores the affective relations of
stigmatisation, place and urban inequality through Co-Creative, participatory methods. This
methodological banner of ‘Co-Creation’ has been cited across a range of disciplines, such as children’s
geographies (Stephens et al, 2014), management and business studies (Voorberg et al, 2015), health
care research (Gill et al, 2011; Zanetti and Taylor, 2016), urban and culture research (Horvath and
Carpenter, 2018), feminist research (Ringrose and Renold, 2014) and educational studies (Bovill et al,
2011). Across these disciplines, Co-Creation is commonly thought of as moving beyond tokenistic
participation and guided by fundamental notions of participation, praxis, collective creativity and
knowledge exchange between two or more individuals that continues throughout the inquiry and
design process.

In this empirical research, our conceptualisation of Co-Creation is supported by an inclusive approach,

whereby young people were invited to contribute insights through the relational production of
knowledge. Young people contributed their insights throughout the design process – from initially
exploring ideas and questions relevant to them in their community to trialling and selecting creative
practices to tell their own stories and experiences of moving through everyday spaces. In this project
there was no ‘artist’ involved as both young people and the researcher were understood to be actively
co-creating knowledge through a range of arts-based research practices.

Our particular interest lies in exploring Co-Creation as a new materialist approach to creative,
participatory research. We draw upon the first author’s empirical PhD research that used arts-based
practice and knowledge exchange to engage with young people (aged ten to 17), families and local
practitioners (health, childhood and family services) in the exploration of inequality, affect and
embodied mobility in a large town in the South West of England. Co-Creation provided an overarching
process that utilised creative participatory methods, such as ‘photovoice’, peer-led interviewing,
mapping, poster making and film making. These creative artefacts were co-created with young people
to explore affective relations of leisure, class, gender, space and place. Arts-based methods produced
provocations to think differently and intervene in the complexities of power and entanglements of
human and nonhuman relations that shaped young peoples’ embodied mobility. While the main part
of the empirical work involved engaging with young people through creative practices, this inquiry
provided further opportunities to engage with young people’s parents, carers and local practitioners

69
in this research. For example, at the start of this inquiry, local practitioners were involved through
initial meetings to explore their thoughts about the multiple challenges and complexities around
young people’s lives in Swindon. Later practitioners were brought together with young people and
their families through the exhibition event, which showcased young people’s creative outputs and
facilitated the exchange of ideas about their everyday challenges. Throughout this chapter, we share
specific examples from this wider empirical research, and in particular, turning to young people’s
stories and experiences of embodied mobility through photovoice and poster-making creative
practices.

In the chapter, we discuss how the conceptualisation of a creative research assemblage extends
traditional ways of co-creating and co-constructing research within interpretative traditions that have
previously rested upon dualisms of real/representation, self/world, self/other, mind/body. A creative
research assemblage brings together different kinds of knowledge, for example, techniques, artefacts,
researcher bodies, young bodies, human and nonhuman contexts. Rather than position the humanist
subject at the centre of Co-Creation, assemblage models approach ‘creativity as relational, emerging
through human and nonhuman encounters and affects’ (Fullagar and Small, 2018: 125). Throughout
this chapter, we think through some of the onto-ethico-epistemological assumptions that underpin
the ‘doing’ of Co-Creation as inventive post-qualitative practice.

The creative research assemblage: thinking through theory and method

Moving beyond a primary concern with a methodological technique and process, Co-Creation was
enacted in our study as a material-discursive knowledge practice to ‘produce’ different ways of
knowing and (re)presenting young people’s affective stories of stigmatised spaces. New materialist
theories pursue a rhizomatic, rather than linear, movement of ideas and practices. Central to new
materialist work is disrupting the method/theory binary assumed in interpretative research that seeks
to understand and ‘capture’ lived experiences (Coleman and Ringrose, 2013; Taylor, 2016). Such
humanist traditions often reduce ‘qualitative methodology to a matter of technique, instrument or
toolkit’ to represent the ‘real’ world (Fullagar, 2017: 249). Post-qualitative inquiry refuses a neat
separation of theory and methods, and ‘encourages researchers to deconstruct what QR [qualitative
research] is and destabilize taken for granted assumptions’ (Kuby et al, 2016: 141).

In moving beyond humanist assumptions about individual creativity and essentialist categories of
identity, Co-Creation can be thought of as a creative research assemblage that brings into relation a
range of objects, desires, bodies and contexts to disrupt, reimagine and contest the normative (for
example, stigmatising of groups and places, and the invisibility of privileged perspectives). This
creative assemblage helped us to re-think what research ‘does’ and the role of creativity in this
process, as the human and nonhuman informed the process of social inquiry. According to Fox and
Alldred (2017: 153), new materialist social inquiry ‘treats the researcher and research event… as an
assemblage that produces a variety of material capabilities in its human and nonhuman relations’. As
Fox (2013: 495) emphasises, ‘creativity is an active, experimenting flow within a network or
assemblage of bodies, things, ideas and institutions’. This present study engaged young people in a
creative research assemblage that made visible the affective dimensions of inequality, human and
nonhuman relations in order to produce change oriented cultural artefacts. Filming, photographs and

70
a public exhibition were used to produce a social change oriented ‘creative research assemblage’. This
was comprised of both nonhuman and human elements and relations (young people, researchers,
organisations and charities, parents/carers); research ‘tools’, methodology and methods (film
equipment, photovoice, arts and design materials, recording devices); the spaces and physical locality
of research events; and the theoretical frameworks and ideas guiding and informing social inquiry. As
we will explore, there were different ways in which meaning materialised through young people’s
experiences and the texts, images and stories produced through this creative research assemblage.

In contrast to conventional humanist research that often ignores affective relations in the desire to
‘represent’ people’s lives, our post-qualitative inquiry examined flows of affects and emotions as
productive of Co-Creative methodologies. The turn towards affect throughout the humanities and
social sciences has been particularly inspired by the work of Deleuze and Guattari (1988) and moves
beyond individualised emotion to flows of affect as sensations, desires, power relations and embodied
becoming (Deleuze, 1995). Affects have been articulated as ‘sticky’ (Ahmed, 2004); they ‘travel as well
as stick in points of fixation’ (Kofoed and Ringrose, 2012: 5). Affect and emotion, as sensations, are
always bound up with discursive frames and cannot be separated (Ahmed, 2004; Kumm and Johnson,
2018). As Ahmed (2004) further emphasises, emotion and affect cannot be divided; emotions become
entangled and circulate through the affective economy of everyday social relations (including,
inequality). Rather than privileging discourse, affect is considered important in terms of the capacity
to disrupt, move and rework the social (Massumi, 1995). Affective relations connect young people’s
bodies and practices through complex assemblages, which are bound up with broader economic,
technological and sociological forces and contexts (such as sport and physical culture, Fullagar and
Pavlidis, (2018)). As such, young people are moved by the forces of affect within a broader ‘affective
economy’ (Ahmed, 2004), which ‘connects bodies in leisure contexts (gyms, sports fields, pools) with
power relations that produce social inequities (class, ethnicity, gender, age, sexuality, disability)’
(Depper et al, 2018: 7). Thinking with theoretical concepts of assemblage and affect was central to
this study, in order to enhance a new materialist social inquiry with layers of meaning, nuance and
ontological complexity. We were interested in exploring what role affect plays in the micropolitics of
working with different desires, bodies, and techniques to effect change.

Post-qualitative ways of thinking further helped us to theorise ideas around ‘voice’ within Co-Creation
processes. Departing from representational approaches to voice that seek a so-called truth (Berbary
and Boles, 2014), we explored complex and embodied notions of voice within Co-Creation processes.
Previous participatory approaches have often relied upon problematic notions of ‘giving’ ‘a voice to
those being researched’ (Coad, 2012: 12) or attempting to retrieve an authentic voice (St Pierre, 2014).
These claims often position young people as a homogenous group, where voice becomes a
transparent means through which young people communicate an inner ‘truth’. New materialist ideas
were central to exploring questions of what claims are made about participatory approaches in voicing
issues of marginalisation, and what forms of accountability are evident in the knowledge claims made
by co-created research in the representation of the lives of others (Barad, 2007).

This inquiry embraced the materiality of embodied voices and experiences that are negotiated
through the process of Co-Creation. This notion of embodied voice disrupts binary oppositions
between the mind/ body, subject/object, method/theory, interior/exterior (St Pierre et al, 2016;
Coleman and Ringrose, 2013). New materialist notions of embodied voice are central to understanding

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human and nonhuman relations as ‘complex, co-constitutive, and co-constructive’ (Hroch and
Stoddart, 2015: 295–6). Voice, therefore, can be understood ‘as an assemblage, a complex network
of human and nonhuman agents that exceeds the traditional notion of the individual’ (Mazzei, 2013:
734). In this way, the research assemblage produced embodied voice in particular ways through the
participatory and creative methods. This study thus extends Co-Creation in new directions, by
embracing various theoretical perspectives that reconfigure voice, the subject, agency and
embodiment.

Co-Creative practices

Through Co-Creation, young people reimagined, intervened and performed critical ideas about the
complexities in their everyday lives. Co-Creative, arts-based practices created an embodied space to
challenge normative categories of knowing and being ‘young and active’. We conceptualise Co-
Creation as a democratic process, involving multiple partners and voices, including young people,
researchers, communities and practitioners who come together through creativity and interaction. In
the present study, photovoice, peer-led interviewing, mapping, poster making and film making
methodologies were used during and alongside workshops to explore young people’s affective
relationalities and experiences of everyday, stigmatised spaces. Our attention now turns to these
specific creative, participatory methodologies adopted and to Swindon where this inquiry took place.

The project was located in Swindon, a large town in the South West of England and explored young
people’s affective practices of mobility in low-income areas. Swindon was purposefully selected as a
site where the micropolitics of inequality and disparity played out for young people and their families.
In comparison to other places in the UK, Swindon has reported relatively high levels of inequality and
poverty, with 16% of children living in low-income families (Swindon Borough Council, 2017) and
specific communities facing poverty, deprivation, social exclusion and high unemployment rates
(Swindon Borough Council, 2016). Poverty can be understood as households with a Relative Low
Income; based upon a local measure of ‘children in families in receipt of either out of work benefits,
or tax credits where their reported income is less than 60% median income’ (NHS Swindon, 2011: 5).
Particular families living in marginalised and low-income areas of Swindon have been subjected to
stigmatising depictions within the media. Swindon has been labelled the ‘ugliest town in England’
(Grant, 2015) and elsewhere Swindon was once stigmatised as the ‘fattest town’ in the West of
England (Mackley, 2014). Particular communities have been depicted as a ‘no-go zone’ (Cross, 2015)
and ‘a run-down sprawling council estate on the outskirts of Swindon, home to hundreds of
unemployed lone parents’ (McDonald, 2002). Through our research, young people reimagined
stigmatising depictions of Swindon and actively performed a different sense of place in highly affective
ways.

This qualitative inquiry took place in Swindon over the course of a year and involved three
participatory projects with three different groups of young people, an exhibition event and semi-
structured interviews with both the young people’s parents or carers and practitioners who worked
within children and family support services in Swindon. This research engaged with young people
through three different organisations; each of the three organisations supported children, young
people and their families who have been identified as ‘disadvantaged’ in multiple ways. These services
support children and young people living in Swindon’s most vulnerable communities who are faced
with significant challenges, including living in low-income households; experiencing learning and

72
communication difficulties; living in care; and having care responsibilities for family members. As this
research involved data collection with young people, who can be defined as a vulnerable group due
to their age, formal safeguarding and ethical procedures were followed to ensure that the welfare of
young people was supported at all times. All participants received a study information sheet and were
required to sign an adult consent or young person’s assent form to confirm their willingness to take
part. The names of the participants, organisations and any specific locations within Swindon have been
replaced with pseudonyms.

Over a period of nine months, the first author facilitated three projects (with the collective title Your
Space, Your Say), over different durations with young people in the different groups engaging with
creative practices in varying ways. The Co-Creation of qualitative data involved participatory
photovoice, peer-led interviewing, mapping, poster making and film making to help co-create youth-
oriented accounts of mobility through stigmatised community spaces. These innovative methods ‘on
the move’ enabled young people to walk through community spaces, while creatively and critically
exploring spaces and issues that were important in their everyday lives through visual methodologies.
The process of Co-Creation brought into relation a range of affects (fear, shame, pleasure, belonging);
produced through relations of stigmatisation that shape experiences of place and urban inequality.
Co-Creation became a process of doing, inventing, creating knowledge together, guided by the first
author’s focus on questions of inequality. This chapter draws upon specific examples from the study;
in particular photovoice and poster-making practices, to explore young people’s experiences and
stories of embodied mobility. Most of these activities took place during the first phase of the project
when young people started to share their ideas and experiences through creative practices. In these
particular examples, a group of five young people aged ten to fifteen worked both individually and
collectively to explore different places in Swindon accompanied by the researcher, to take pictures of
objects and places that were significant to them. Following these outings, young people then created
posters and collages of their printed photographs, adding their own drawings and words to describe
their experiences and feelings of these particular places.

At the end of the projects, young people presented their creative and critical artefacts at a public
engagement exhibition in Swindon. The aim of the exhibition was to disseminate young people’s
findings, as well as highlight ways in which communities can engage with policy discourses to effect
social change. The exhibition event emphasised the health and social challenges in Swindon while
inviting local practitioners to consider more responsive and inclusive approaches to address
inequality. As part of the creative assemblage, the exhibition mobilised a politics of imagination
(Latimer and Skeggs, 2011). Through watching the films, listening to the views of young people on the
panel talks, walking through the exhibition spaces to see the posters, and even contributing their own
ideas through an interactive exhibit, attendees were invited to imagine and make sense of young
people’s lives in different ways. The Co-Creative practices of the exhibition invited the attendees to
move through and be moved by the affective imaginaries (Dawney, 2011) of the exhibition space. The
exhibition invited new conversations about recognising and responding to issues of inequality that
manifest in young people’s everyday lives. The Your Space, Your Say project disrupted the limited
notion of agency and encouraged a more critical and creative engagement with young people about
the affective relations of leisure spaces in Swindon. Following the exhibition, the first author facilitated
semi-structured interviews with the young people’s parents, carers, and local practitioners in children

73
and young people’s services, to explore their thoughts and ideas about the young people’s projects
and their perspectives of the complexities of inequalities.

Thinking-making-doing: Mapping urban inequality and stigmatisation in young people’s everyday

spaces

In what follows, we draw upon a specific example from this inquiry that explored affective relations
of stigmatisation of urban places through specific arts-based practices. Art-based drawings, poster-
making and photovoice helped thinking-making-doing the banal and often taken for granted moments
of young people’s everyday, stigmatised spaces. In particular, the photovoice practice helped to evoke
the vivid, sensory and embodied nature of these spaces of multiplicity. The photovoice method
involved young people visiting specific places in Swindon that were significant to them and taking
pictures of objects, people, places and materials in order to visually represent their local environment
and then facilitating discussion around their images. After the photovoice outing, young people used
their printed pictures to make collages and posters to illustrate the multiple feelings they experienced
in these places. Young people were drawn to particular moments of re-membering; they spoke to
these ‘lively’ images with an affective intensity. For example, Megan created the following poster:

[INSERT FIGURE 6.1 NEAR HERE]

As active ‘co-creators’ of space, young people shared their stories of embodied mobility; voicing these
moments that were fearful, risky or pleasurable. Meaning about everyday spaces was produced in
both singular and collective ways through this process of photovoice. From moving through the busy
spaces of the high street, relaxing at the park, to meeting new people or waiting at stop signs, young
people emphasised the complex affects circulating through the urban milieu:

‘Researcher: So Megan, would you say you preferred being in the town centre or
being at the park?

Megan: Park

Researcher: Why’s that?

Megan: Because it’s calm and chilled and there’s no traffic, like constant traffic

Researcher: Mmm

Megan: And it’s a place where you can just sit and relax, it’s weird, it’s a weird
feeling, although it makes me, it’s just the looks of it, it just makes you feel calmer
and… yeah than like Sports Direct. It’s like you’re always, even if you’re in your
favourite shop, you’re all constantly… not nervous or…

Nicole: You’re always walking

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 Megan: You’re just like, it’s a weird feeling, cause you’re where everyone is and you
feel constantly like watched and there’s other people there so you go into your
favourite shop, still you’re not really relaxed are you

Researcher: Mmm

Megan: But when you’re in parks like this, with like you know you’ve got your birds

Nicole: And there’s teenagers in the town and stuff

Megan: Yeah you’re not relaxed cause like Greggs can be your favourite shop and
MacDonald’s but there’s loads of teenagers there and you never relax so… But
when you’re here, it’s all calm, it’s just nice to sit and chill’

Extract 1: Youth Organisation group, workshop seven, 12 April 2017

Young people welcomed the more tranquil spaces of the park, and they emphasised the multiple
senses that intermingled as they moved through and between the shops and park. Both the materiality
of spaces and human relations become entangled in young people’s everyday assemblages, which
produced significant affects (fear, shame, anxiousness) of seeing, or being seen, by particular groups
of people in the busy town centre. As young people moved through mundane spaces, they were also
moved by different affects, memories and events with them; the park became “a place where you can
just sit and relax”.

For young people space-time relations were constantly changing and negotiated, as they moved
through urban areas in Swindon. Uncertainties, desires and worries co-existed in relation to fears
about harassment or shaming. For example, young people articulated how they wanted to escape
from the uncertainties, anxieties and business of certain leisure spaces where they constantly felt like
they were being “watched”. The previous extract evoked the anxious affects and effects of being
watched as young people moved through the busy shops, feeling like they were under constant
surveillance. Power relations work to produce these affects for young people who negotiate
stereotypical positioning of young bodies as ‘trouble’. These multiple relations circulated in young
people’s everyday spaces as young people feared other groups of young people. They had to
constantly negotiate these shifting space-time relations, moving through urban areas and spaces as
they felt anxious, or in the case of Laywick Park, a place where they felt safe.

While young people emphasised the affects that circulated in this park to make them feel at ease and
relaxed, at the same time there was still ambivalence in their affective responses to Laywick Park. For
example, in the following extract, young people reflected on the ubiquity of crime that circulates in
multiple spaces in Swindon, even in the idyllic, seemingly ‘safe’ space of Laywick Park:

‘Researcher: …do you think crime happens in parks though?

Megan: Yeah obviously like crime happens everywhere

Nicole: Yeah

Megan: No matter how nice or anything crime happens everywhere

75
 Nicole: Yeah

Researcher: Was it that particular park that felt more safe?

Megan: No, it’s just that it seems safe, although no where’s safe if you think about
it

Nicole: Yeah

Megan:…like gangs and stuff. Because no matter where you go or how nice the
area is, there’s always them people’

Extract 2: Youth Organisation group, workshop seven, 12 April 2017

The Co-Creative methods moved young people in particular ways, as they felt comfortable to take
pictures in this space that “seems safe”, without the on looking gaze of other young people or busy
spaces of the high street. This emphasised the multiple and highly relational meanings of “safe”. For
young people, Laywick Park was not just a ubiquitous ‘safe’ space; there were still ambivalences and
discursive relations that young people negotiated as they moved through multiple, everyday spaces
in Swindon. The fear of crime and ‘gangs’ stayed with young people, even as they moved into the
seemingly tranquil spaces of Laywick Park.

The practice of photovoice produced insights into the ways in which young people negotiated the
everyday affective flows within these ‘risk-assemblages’, comprised of bodies, class-based discourses
and material events such as crime, violence and embodied movement through community spaces. As
Megan explained, “no matter where you go or how nice the area is, there’s always them people”. This
particular group of young people resided in areas associated with stigmatising discourses around high
levels of poverty, crime and limited labels of ‘working class’ residents who resided there. Young people
navigated their own discursive positioning in relation to “them people”, as Megan strived to distance
herself from the groups of people she was referring to.

Previous literature on health and inequality has highlighted the ways in which the people from working
class backgrounds strive to resist and protect themselves from such discourses of stigma and shame
(Popay et al, 2003). According to Lamont (2009: 156), resisting spatial stigma can be significant in
negotiating social inequalities, as individuals strive to ‘draw group boundaries – who is “in” and “out”
– and define the meaning they give to their group – who is “us” and “them”’. Elsewhere, Thomas’s
(2016: 2) study found that ‘young people produce multiple meanings of place and can resist stigma by
Othering certain districts and social groups’. These findings indicate that the stigmatising discourses
of spaces have significant consequences for young people, as ‘place and identity are inexorably linked’
(Thrift, 1997). As Megan emphasised her own positionality as separate to “them people”, this example
is laden with ‘sticky affects’ (Ahmed, 2004). Both the high street shops and Laywick Park became a
complex assemblage of affects, materials and discursive relations which, bound with the dynamics of
power and regulatory gaze, constantly shifted within young people’s everyday spaces. These relational
understandings of power, place and identity speak back to simplistic views of encouraging young
people to be more active in public spaces that ignore space-time relations of power.

76
Conclusion: Co-Creation and bridging theory-method divides

In this chapter, we have brought together multiple theoretical and methodological ideas that call for
alternative ways of thinking about young people’s every day, urban spaces. Through new materialist
ideas, we have reoriented thinking about young people’s everyday spaces beyond ‘containers’ for
action; they are made up of materials, sensations, human and nonhuman relations. This involved
enacting a theory-method approach whereby our theoretical sensibility was entangled in the process
of Co-Creation. This empirical research engaged with young people, their families and practitioners
through specific creative practices that enabled ideas to be materialised in ways that conventional
research methodologies may not have been able to evoke.

Co-Creation involved a process of challenging and contesting conventional ideas about young people’s
mobility through low-income communities. The possibilities of Co-Creation with young people have
been largely under-theorised and, indeed, still require further attention. In particular, we have turned
to the possibilities for arts-based practices and events to become provocations for intervening in the
complex power relations of everyday, stigmatised spaces. In moving beyond representational logic
and constructionism, we have explored Co-Creation as not just a methodological technique, but a
material-discursive knowledge practice with young people. Thinking about a ‘creative research
assemblage’ has helped us to enact a theory-method approach that reconfigures traditional ways of
co-creating knowledge within interpretivist approaches.

Co-Creation was both a material means of mobilising change and (re)presenting research, as young
people worked individually and collectively to produce creative artefacts that enabled an exploration
affective relations that entangle leisure, class, gender, space and place. Ripples of change were
produced in various ways – the exhibition created a community space for listening-learning with young
people to disrupt stereotypes and make issues visible; in turn, the local youth forum pursued key
issues and a youth agency incorporated report findings into their strategic discussions. There is a need
to intervene in adult designed spaces to create more youth friendly spaces, where young people are
able to participate in reimagining them and creating them through arts-based practices. As class
divisions play out in communities, these neglected areas are not just a matter of apolitical aesthetics,
they are bound up with an economy of affect that intensifies shame, stigma and exclusion. There was
significant value in engaging in aesthetic, artistic creations such as films and poster displays that
moved beyond the limitations of language. We are reminded by Horvath and Carpenter (2018: 12)
that Co-Creation ‘does not consist of a fixed set of tools and techniques’, but rather it is a process of
mutual understanding, co-creating ideas and dialogue between individuals. It is thus important to
consider the ways in which spaces for Co-Creation can be disruptive, alter relations and produce
circulating affects that cannot be separated from the young people’s experiences of place and space.

77
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SEVEN

Does space matter? Positioning built environments for Co-Creation in Mexico City

Pamela Ileana Castro Suarez and Hector Quiroz Rothe

Introduction

In this chapter, we look to understand the role of the built environment in the processes of
collaborative projects associated with the concept of Co-Creation. We explore the ways in which
space can be the product of social and cultural processes developing in a certain area, but also a
place as well as a process in which marginalisation and stigmatisation take place through the
morphological characteristics of the place itself. What starts as an initiative of a group of residents
who want to improve social cohesion in their neighbourhood evolves into actions that always
happen somewhere: in a square, in a park, a market, in a public building or simply in the street or
the walls of a forgotten alley. Usually, this space factor seems to be ignored by social studies;
however, space matters as urban spaces and social interactions cannot be disassociated from one
another.

The urban form and architectural dimensions of specific facilities will be explored over other
political, organisational or financial aspects that are usually considered in sociological research.
It is also important to mention that we do not ignore the transcendence of digital platforms in the
development of virtual Co-Creative projects; however, they should be studied in further research.

This text considers the authors’ experience as both academics and urban planners in Mexico City
enriched with feedback from conferences and workshops organised by the Co-Creation Project.
Specifically, we have deepened the analysis of the case study with an investigation of artistic and
cultural venues in Mexico City and with semi-structured interviews with staff members of these
facilities.

The approach employed considers the built environment as a useful medium to achieve the social
benefits that Co-Creation promoters from the arts sphere are aiming for, through diverse
participatory methodologies that are shared with urban planning practice (Miessen and Basar,
2006; Kitao, 2005). In this sense, the definition of Co-Creation here favours the process in which
various agents participate to produce information and knowledge about their current situation
and expectations about the built environment through the use of arts-based methods to improve
their environment more than only being interested in producing a collective work of art as a
unique goal (Sánchez, 2008, 2015; Gómez, 2004; Palacios, 2009; Bishop, 2012). We intend, then,
to illuminate the relationships between the location and characteristics of art and cultural venues,
social keys for successful Co-Creative projects, and agents involved in these processes. Our
interest responds to the assumption that these spaces have the potential to implement and
improve collective projects based on the principles of Co-Creation that this book suggests.

Conceptual frames: Spatial and socially engaged art practices

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Several authors agree that public spaces and social interactions cannot be disassociated from one
another. They are part of the social structure which helps to develop social interactions but at the
same time, they are the result of these interactions (Giddens, 1984; Shotter, 1984; Krupat, 1985;
Soja, 1989; Lefebvre, 1991; Bentley, 1999; Harvey, 2006). Lefebvre (1991: 33, 38) refers to spatial
practices as processes that mediate the production and reproduction of particular social
formations in different spatial sets. Urban space facilitates the development of social practices
and the experimentation of the use of the space in different manners such as traditional emotional
and religious manners (Lefebvre, 1991). According to Giddens (1984: 33, 258) public spaces are
a medium of material production and a produced good. This opens the opportunity to think that
space intervenes in the production and reproduction of social practices, including artistic
practices which influence the space constituted in turn. Participatory and collaborative projects
are frequently placed in public open spaces. Squares, parks and the walls of public facilities
(schools, markets, social centres, and so on) are the obvious places which enable and enhance
participation of diverse agents. These public spaces, however, do not always offer the best
conditions to develop long-term projects based on Co-Creation principles.

This paper focuses on two core elements – firstly spaces or places where collaborative processes
can take place in better conditions, and secondly socially engaged art practices. On the one hand,
there are public spaces where some arts practices take place and buildings that offer basic
comfort and security conditions to all participants who in their daily life suffer environmental
and social risks in their marginalised neighbourhoods. These buildings, public or private, already
host creative, and sometimes collaborative, activities based on art methods and their staff have
experience of projects that touch on the set of Co-Creation principles.

On the other hand, according to the theory of the third place (Oldenburg, 2002), common spaces
in museums and social centres could be ideal locations to host social encounters and build
dialogues through Co-Creation principles. How should these spaces be shaped? What are their
qualities and limitations that need to be addressed? What kinds of art practices are more common
in Mexico? To answer these questions, it is necessary to study the operational conditions of arts
and cultural venues. The next section will explore some of these questions.

A long tradition of socially engaged artists

The links between cultural institutions, official and independent aesthetics, artists involved in
political activism and diverse collective art experiences throughout the city can be situated along
the last century’s cultural history in Mexico. Most of them are interwoven and deeply rooted in
marginalised neighbourhoods of Mexico City. Hijar (2007) offers a chronological review of artistic
collectives that have had an impact in contemporary Mexican culture that we pick up to explain
this sometimes contradictory process concentrated around four moments:

Firstly, during the decade of 1920–30, the social and political post-revolutionary context favoured
the creation of popular arts and crafts schools and the participation of young artists to produce a
new art for the people. The emblematic expression of this time is the Mural Art that undertook a
pedagogical role spreading the national history and values of the Mexican Revolution. In this way,
the walls of many public buildings (town halls, markets, libraries and public schools) were
covered with mural paintings that today are proudly part of the artistic heritage of many

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communities. Nowadays, it is not uncommon for communities to still vote for the use of public or
common funds to produce such types of artworks (murals) appealing to local history and
traditions despite sometimes doubtful narratives.

Secondly, around 1940, the once revolutionary-inspired art became too official and less
provocative. As Hijar (2007) demonstrated many artists, dissident or contestant, were finally co-
opted by the system. In this period, two main national art and culture institutions were founded,
the National Institute of Anthropology and History and the National Institute of Fine Arts (INAH
and INBA are their acronyms in Spanish). Since then, these institutions have had a strong
influence on art and culture projects as the main sponsors and managers of the national art
schools, museums and theatres, as well as providing funding and scholarships in any Mexican art
domain. Their buildings are landmarks on various scales of the urban landscape and usually noted
by people as identity places. There is alternative thinking inside of these institutions that allows
experimentation and innovation in artistic practices close to the principles of Co-Creation.

Thirdly, the 1960s were also a period for social contestation against the status quo in Mexico,
similar to a number of other countries. The 1968 Mexican Student Movement is considered a
turning point for diverse opposition movements including a new generation of socially engaged
artists. During the 1970s, the underground scene was fortified with new individuals and art
collectives linked frequently to political opposition parties creating a new aesthetic in plastic arts,
graphics, theatre and even architecture based in deprived urban peripheries. This process still
goes on today.

Finally, from 1988, the neoliberal model was adopted by the Mexican government. In the cultural
context, subtle assimilation of a mercantilist conceptualisation of the historic and artistic heritage
took place. Since 1997, Mexico City has been a national exception somehow, because left-wing
mayors have managed the city favouring – perhaps more in the discourse than in practice –
alternative cultural expressions, through long-term programmes and projects. One of the most
interesting has been the creation of six schools of arts and crafts called FAROS (acronym in
Spanish of Arts and Crafts Factories) located in deprived zones of the city. This innovative cultural
project has reversed the location logics of culture and art venues imposed for nearly two decades.
However, the current city government is favouring a new program called PILARES (acronym of
Points for Innovation, Liberty, Art, Education, and Knowledge). This project is different from
FAROS, but both have the same goal of restructuring the social fabric. Out of the planned 300
PILARES facilities, 150 have been put into operation in neighbourhoods with high concentrations
of social vulnerability. The programmes focus on sports, basic online education, social economy
and culture offering activities including book and film clubs, collaborative transformations like
community work, artistic painting, percussions, and ‘pantomime for life’ according with the
official web page (Gobierno de la Ciudad, 2019).

So, at least since the 1920s, positive examples of public and collective art have been identified
that are deeply rooted in official narratives and truly appreciated by local residents. Among them,
murals are the most common art form in the official and independent domains of art production.
The agents participating in the process include official or independent artists, authorities of
different levels, academic and independent researchers, and various local stakeholders. As these
collaborative art projects happen over longer time periods that overtake the logics of public
authorities or academic timetables, not all the agents participate at the same time. But what they

83
all share is the confidence in the potential of art or art-based methods to reconstruct positive
relationships between stakeholders and new perspectives in the perception of common public
spaces (Jiménez, 2016).

Sometimes the resulting artwork transforms the perception of a place in a permanent way and
the outcomes include a fresh, collective aesthetic experience based on diverse arts methods.
Overall, it is a collective process that produces positive social effects such as improved
communication between agents, acknowledgement and inclusion of others, and awareness about
common problems in a shared space. In short, this collective aesthetic process is more valuable
than the resulting work of art in our definition of Co-Creation according to our experience and
the evidence found in Mexico City.

Based on the previous historical review and to take into account recent artistic and cultural
experiences in Mexico City, research was carried out focussing on local collaborative art projects
during 2017–19. Between January and May 2017, literature and documentations were conducted,
and the authors also undertook informal interviews and fieldwork to identify individual artists
projects such as Fe Publica, Carpa orgánica or Casa Refugiados; and collective projects such as
Campamentos Unidos, Calmecac Miravalle, ATEA, Galería La Buena Estrella, Green Virus, and
official programmes such as Central de Muros, Lienzo Capital, Ciudad y Palabras.

Analysis of this information made it possible to understand that these practices are punctual in
time and space and it is difficult to track their social effects in the long run. This is why it was
decided that the following phase of the research would focus on the built environment, exploring
types of arts and cultural venues that offered the best conditions for the development of
participative projects based on the Co-Creation criteria. The geographical analysis, fieldwork and
empirical data collection were carried out in 2018–19. A series of 31 semi-structured interviews
were recorded with the venues’ managers, staff and visitors. Cultural facilities were classified
according to their type of management and dimensions. As a result, six categories were
established: international cooperations, large public national facilities, large metropolitan and
private venues, public universities, local public venues, and small independent private venues.
The number of interviews dedicated to each category was determined by various factors
including staff availability. Thus, privately financed institutions such as international
cooperations or large private cultural facilities were not included in this phase while six
interviews were recorded with staff from both large national public facilities and public
university facilities, 14 with the collaborators of public local facilities, and five with those of
independent private centres.

The evidence of the diversity of collaborative artistic practices and cultural venues in
Mexico City

Data analysis allowed the authors to identify three key components that were relevant to
collaborative projects: artistic practices; infrastructure or types of facilities for art and culture;
and agents operating facilities. This section will present the characteristics of each of these.

84
Collaborative artistic practices

Research found that artistic practices corresponding to our definition of Co-Creation have been
operated by groups of professional artists with a permanent place working in public and private
spaces, individual artists with projects in public open space, institutional projects of social
development with groups of artists and residents and/or volunteers in public facilities, and
groups of self-taught artists together with residents with self-managed cultural projects in low
income neighbourhoods. Examples of these practices are shown in more detail in Figure 7.1 and
a brief summary of each type is presented as follows.

Collective groups of professional artists with a permanent place

These groups are composed of professional artists and practitioners of other disciplines who
usually work in specific neighbourhoods that are their main sphere of action. They have their own
stable working place that allows them to develop activities and long-term projects which implies
attachment to and stable relationships with the community. In those places, it is possible to offer
courses and workshops to the community. They can have public or private external funding
and/or be self-financing. They can also become gentrifying agents; however, this issue cannot be
addressed in this chapter. The artists and other professionals are knowledge producers as well,
and they work directly with residents of the neighbourhood.

Individual artistic projects in public open space

Professional artists with a stable production mostly use the methodologies of participatory or
collaborative art, with major or minor involvement of inhabitants. These are specific
interventions in public spaces with the participation of the residents or users of the
neighbourhood. The public space is used as a stage or platform, the impact is one-off and of short
duration. When dealing with specific events or interventions, it is difficult to measure their
impact. These processes include recordings and detailed documentation for formal art media
(galleries and associated museums). Funding can be public or private from foundations, through
scholarships or prizes.

Institutional social development projects in public facilities

These are publicly funded programmes that use participative arts methods as tools to enhance
the townscape and the perception of security through improving public spaces associated with
public facilities (schools or markets). Artists or advisors are contracted to develop projects with
community participation and the resulting artwork is usually a custom-made mural. Generally,
institutions are the initiators of the participation process and they patronise the community,
landlords or users of the spaces.

85
Collective groups of self-taught artists and residents with self-managed cultural projects in low
income neighbourhoods

These are projects integrated into self-managed urban planning processes. They accompany the
construction and consolidation of popular neighbourhoods of informal origin. The groups are
formed of professional and self-taught artists who participate with partners from other
disciplines and are backed by community leaders and political parties. The artists are usually very
attached to the neighbourhood where they are located, and they are well-identified by the
residents. The project can include the self-production of multipurpose working places including
cultural facilities. These projects combine purposes of community development with artistic
training and creativity (plastic arts, dance, theatre, music), as well as creative artistic practices
like tools for neighbourhood participation and integration of community. The participation of
researchers or academics in the set of mentioned art practices is a constant; sometimes as
partners, sometimes as observers.

It seems to be a trend for the first two types of collaborative art practices to be in central areas of
the city; in contrast with the other two, which are mostly located in social or territorial
peripheries. Figure 7.1 provides examples of each type and their web page for more details.

Figure 7.1 Examples of collaborative art projects in Mexico City

Type of Artistic Project Description Reference

practice collective

Collective La Buena Memoria Recuperation of http://www.labuenaestrella.inf

groups of Estrella 06470 collective o/memoria-06470
professiona memory through
l artists digital resources
with a with QRs with
permanent information
place widespread
through the
neighbourhood

Individual Santiago Carpa Shared meals https://www.santiagorobles.inf

artistic Robles orgánica with homeless o/
projects de la people and
Soledad prostitutes in
public space
https://repositorio.unam.mx/c
ontenidos/todos-cocinamos-
todos-comemos-proyectos-de-
arte-colaborativo-en-el-

86
 espacio-publico-de-la-ciudad-
de-mexico-
68517?c=pNEKoB&d=false&q=
santiago_._robles_._bonfil&i=1&
v=1&t=search_0&as=0

Institutiona We do Central Mural to http://centraldemuros.org.mx/

l projects of things de muros improve the
social collectively public image of
developme sponsored the market
http://www.onunoticias.mx/n
nt by the city
uevos-murales-sobre-cambio-
Wholesale
climatico-en-la-central-de-
Market
abasto/
Board and
UN 2030
Agenda
https://coolhuntermx.com/art
e-julio-2018-central-de-muros-
central-de-abastos-cdmx/

Collective Centro de Diverse Independent https://es-

groups of artes y workshop self-managed la.facebook.com/pages/categor
self-taught oficios s and social centre in y/Community-
artists and Escuelita festivals Pedregal de Organization/Centro-de-Artes-
residents Emiliano Santo Domingo y-Oficios-Escuelita-Emiliano-
with self- Zapata Zapata-179765332066567/
managed
cultural
projects

Characteristics of the culture infrastructure for Co-Creation

The capital city of Mexico has been an emblematic example of a Global South metropolis in Latin
America. It was founded by the Aztecs about 700 years ago in a valley already occupied by older
human settlements with at least 3000 years of history. It was later conquered by the Spaniards in
the 1500s and became the capital city of the New Spain Viceroyalty for three centuries, remaining
the jewel of the Spanish Empire due to the existing rich silver and gold mines. The population of
the city remained stable at around 100,000 inhabitants until the end of the 1800s. The Porfiriato
period (1880–1910) represents the start of industrialisation and development of modern urban
infrastructure financed with foreign investments. The first suburban neighbourhoods appeared
around 1860.

87
During the next decades the urbanisation process accelerated and reached its peak around 1970.
The demographic transition entered then in a stabilised stage that defines present-day urban
dynamics. Nowadays, Mexico City is a city of eight million inhabitants, the centre of a metropolitan
zone containing 22 million inhabitants, governed through a structure of three levels of
government, three states and more than 80 municipalities.

In morphological terms, at the metropolitan level, the city is a mix of four main residential types:
planned developments of middle and upper class, social housing estates, working class
neighbourhoods of legal and illegal origin and the remains of conurbated historic towns, plus
large facilities, industrial parks and green areas that shape a metropolitan puzzle; all connected
by corridors of commercial and service uses. Historically, the population with higher incomes has
been concentrated mainly to the west and south of the totally served city since the early 1900s.
On the other hand, low income sectors have been located mostly to the north and east of the
metropolitan zone. It is important to mention that the origin of more than 50 per cent of Mexico
City’s neighbourhoods are illegal urbanisations which have been consolidated over time, reaching
acceptable levels of habitability (Abramo, 2011).

Beyond the criticism produced by the hegemonic aesthetics and urbanism discourses, low income
neighbourhoods have been a platform for innovation in social organisation and housing
architecture. With no doubt, the experience for a more sustainable, inclusive and fairer city is
found here than in the “green” certified skyscrapers and shopping malls produced by financial
institutions.

Mexico City contains 456 cultural venues: 170 museums, 46 public art galleries and 240 cultural
centres (SIC Mexico, 2018). In addition to this universe, 150 out of 300 programmed new
PILARES were inaugurated between 2018 and 2019 and added to the cultural infrastructure.
Mexico City has the largest offer of cultural facilities in the country per inhabitant. However, there
is scarcity and deficiencies in the running of cultural facilities of the city.

The built space is a container of Co-Creative practices and the community that it aims to engage.
We consider it is difficult to ensure the continuity of a cultural or artistic project that seeks to
improve social relations within and outside of a community, without the guarantee of a limited
space that can accommodate its members and its public users with minimum conditions of
comfort. However, in the documented cases, the promoters and users consider important aspects
having a cover that protects them from the sun or rain in the space where they meet, a toilet, a
door or an element that delimits the appropriate space for the members of the collective. The
latter especially in those marginal neighbourhoods where insecurity and crime determine many
activities in public space.

To understand the universe of these facilities in Mexico City, six types have been identified. They
are described as follows. In Figure 7.2, details and examples of each category are presented.

1. International cooperation cultural venues have an outstanding presence in the city cultural
agenda. The German, French and Spanish embassies lead this offer.

2. Large national public cultural facilities are generally localised in prestigious central areas
with appropriate spaces and professional staff for the development of Co-Creative
projects.

88
 3. Large metropolitan private cultural facilities conceived as cultural business sponsored by
the private sector share the prestige of big national facilities.

4. Public universities' cultural facilities managed by the National, Metropolitan and the City’s
autonomous universities and the National Polytechnic with diverse locations throughout
the metropolitan area, some in deprived areas.

5. Local public facilities managed and financed, totally or partially, by the government of
Mexico City. Includes museums, cultural centres, artistic schools and theatres, all located
in the south-west privileged districts of the city. The offer is completed with the FAROS
and more than two hundred centres and houses of culture that service basically the needs
of the neighbouring population. Currently, the PILARES programme is planned by the
authorities to double these numbers.

6. Independent private cultural centres are a heterogeneous category by way of their finance,
cultural offer and approach over the social function of art. Created by the initiative or
individuals or collectives sometimes with family ties that can collaborate with
organisations of neighbours that fight for the improvement of its surroundings at the local
level. In some way, they are the heirs of the socially engaged artist tradition (Figure 7.2).

Figure 7.2 Examples of art and cultural facilities in Mexico City

Type and Name of Description Reference

subtype the venue

International Cultural The cultural centre of the embassy http://ccemx.org/envi

Cooperation Centre of Spain. Hosts a very active a-tu-proyecto/
cultural España programme with exhibitions,
venues workshops and projects focused on
participative and collaborative art
with deprived communities.

Large Children’s A kind of franchise sponsored by https://papalote.org.m

metropolitan museum private business conceived as an x/
private Papalote interactive space for children to
cultural learn about science, ecology, art.
facilities Also located in the Chapultepec
Park, without neighbouring
residential areas

Public The Chopo Managed by the UNAM, a reference http://www.chopo.un

universities Museum for alternative art events am.mx/
cultural associated with minorities. A
facilities landmark in the neighbouring area

89
 Local public FARO The first FARO created around https://www.cultura.c
facilities Oriente 1999, a model replicated in other dmx.gob.mx/recintos/f
areas of the metropolis offering a aro-oriente
wide range of arts and crafts
courses, workshops, festivals, and
so on.
https://es-
la.facebook.com/faro.d
eoriente/

Independent ATEA A pioneer hipster venue located in https://www.facebook

venues a deprived area of the Historic .com/ateacdmx/
Centre

Calmecac In a self-built building, a complete https://mivaledor.com

Miravalle example of a cultural venue and /documental/asamble
offering resulting in long-term a-comunitaria-
participatory processes. Located in miravalle/
a high deprived area of the
Iztapalapa borough

Urban form and architecture considerations

In spatial terms, the geographical distribution of culture venues is uneven and concentrated in
the centre-west of the city. Hundreds of them are distributed following a clear trend of
concentration in four main centrally located districts: Historic Centre, Roma Condesa, Coyoacan
centre and Chapultepec Park, which all together comes to 136 facilities (around 30 per cent of the
total of cultural venues). Accessibility is another morphological condition that relates location of
the enclosure in residential or mixed use areas and public transportation and main avenues. Most
of the lines of the underground converge in the centre. This situation ensures the flow of public
and users to the central zone of the city from the periphery at low cost. Some facilities managed
by local governments have direct access to subway stations.

On the contrary, some other venues are located in isolated peripheral neighbourhoods which
struggle to attract the public from remote areas due to the quality and specificity of their cultural
offer. This is the case with the FAROS and some independent venues which operate in the same
way despite their isolated location. Therefore, one is almost overcrowded while the other one
presents a lack of users. The explanation of this difference is still not clear but could be related to
the quality of their programming and promotion. Although it should be recognised there is also a
new offer of spaces focused on serving residents and marginalised populations in other locations
continuing the tradition of socially committed artistic creation.

The management of cultural facilities, public or private, has little influence in strengthening the
ties between the venue and its surrounding community. It depends mainly on its location. But,

90
there is a strong correlation between cultural venues and built heritage. In every type there are
facilities located in prestigious but old buildings. Maintenance of these buildings increases
considerably the operation costs which provoke the exclusion of non-profitable groups.

Alternative art practices such as Co-Creation are not only neglected by official budgets but also
placed in ‘backyard’ spaces. Despite the international discourse for the recognition and
strengthening of the qualities of public open spaces in neoliberal urbanism in Mexico, nowadays
social conflicts and violence cannot be ignored as they restrict the use of streets, parks and public
transport for common citizens in the context of Mexican cities.

At the architectural scale, there are two main aspects to be considered: architectural design
project and size. In the set of culture venues, morphological differences between public and
private independent facilities are considerable; some have a formal architectural project while in
adapted facilities. The FAROS are the only type of buildings that were specifically designed for art
and culture activities. In fact, its equipment has high quality standards that contrast with other
shortcomings usually found in low income neighbourhoods (Secretaría de Cultura, 2015).

The unique self-build and self-managed venue belongs to the independent venue type. Other
cases of this type are adapted buildings frequently associated with irregular ownership
conditions. The use of historic buildings to house cultural facilities is very common. In federal and
public university venues, it is even the main trend. In terms of size, the bigger facilities belong to
the public federal type, they go from 2,400 m2 to 20,000 m2, in contrast to independent venues
that occupy buildings of less than 500 m2.

On the other hand, open spaces are considered important amenities for the functionality and
success of art practices among audiences in all types of venues. Plazas and forecourts included in
the original design or adapted are multipurpose spaces for massive events allowing to enlarge
the cultural offer beyond the wall limits.

Additionally, local cultural managers, who have moved away from doing arts and crafts as part of
collaborative social projects in any kind of public spaces, realised that a closed space is a basic
requirement to accomplish the objectives. Best intentions can be blocked in the long term by the
absence of basic facilities such as a toilet, a storehouse or simply a fence that allows users to see
the difference between a common place dominated by violence and insecurity and a delimited
‘shelter’ where participants can meet and work together. This condition is even more important
as children, seniors, women and disabled people have specific requirements that can hardly be
fulfilled in public spaces, at least in the current conditions of most Latin American cities.

Although Co-Creation is conceived as a tool to fight social segregation and spatial stigmatisation,
we believe that in the current context of Mexico City it is first necessary to improve the spatial
conditions for participatory activities at least in the initial stages. Therefore, art and cultural
facilities, official or independent, are being alternative locations for the development of projects
based on Co-Creation principles in safer conditions because of the security and services they
provide.

Agents operating facilities, offer of artistic practices and budget

91
As mentioned, to better understand the operational conditions of art and culture venues,
managers and staff members of 30 facilities were interviewed. Here below a brief summary of the
relevant issues:

In most of the analysed facilities, collaborative art projects associated with the Co-Creation
concept have been considered in former annual programmes, attending to the needs of residents,
minorities or vulnerable groups. Specific spaces or programmes to encourage Co-Creative
projects were not identified. In fact, managers and staff members of the venues did not have a
precise definition of Co-Creation, mixing participation, collaboration, and solidarity between
colleagues. In their experience, Co-Creation initiatives were managed by artists, professional or
self-taught, who look to promote the participation of residents or vulnerable groups such as
indigenous people, LGBT collectives or disabled groups in art projects. There is a generalised
acknowledgement about the social value and transformation potential of co-creative experiences
(Jiménez, 2016).

The positive influence of the FAROS in their communities cannot be denied. However, their
impact is not reflected in the statistics regarding social conflicts and violence deeply rooted in the
boroughs where they are located. It is clear that art cannot solve complex social problems that
affect those deprived communities.

In the case of facilities managed by public universities, their educative and leisure offerings tend
to be exclusive considering the cost and academic requirements. On the other hand, their
programmes include the most innovative practices, methodologies and aesthetic subjects
generated by high qualified artists and researchers. Facilities managed by the national
government are in most cases museums that may consider spaces to offer some educational or
recreational activities. Nevertheless, their offering is restricted to opening time schedules and
available staff members. A public budget ensures basic maintenance of their infrastructure and
permanent professional staff. Strengthening links with residents or other social groups is not a
priority in their annual programmes when they exist. Openness for innovation and the continuity
of alternative projects depends on the empathy of managers and the staff more than because of
an established policy.

Finally, despite their contributions to the cultural and artistic realm of the city, the legal and
financial fragility of the independent venues draw our attention. Their staff is oriented to operate
in pressurised conditions and the current city government seems not to be interested in support
them. As we have mentioned above, some cases have developed strong links with their resident
communities (in particular the self-managed ones).

Conclusions

At the national level, Mexico City has a diverse endowment of cultural facilities that offer good
conditions to develop new Co-Creation projects. It was seen in different moments and contexts
the relevance that people have for their involvement in community projects, including cultural or
artistic ones. Even superficial interventions such as the painting of murals on abandoned walls
are positively appreciated by the inhabitants of neighbourhoods mired in the violence associated
with organised crime. These are experiences that improve communication between neighbours,

92
training in dialogue and the elaboration of agreements that strengthen essential values for a
peaceful coexistence: respect, tolerance and solidarity. It is in the popular neighbourhoods of
irregular origin that it is possible to find the most complete and consolidated experiences of
participation and collaboration in all types of urban improvement projects, ranging from the
organisation of cultural events to the consolidation of venues for the realisation of training
activities, recreational and artistic. Formal culture facilities documented in this text are, or should
be, the privileged location for the enhancement of these virtuous processes.

Assessing the social impact of these projects is a pending task that requires the construction of
indicators and monitoring over time. For the time being, it is just possible to adhere to the
conviction that several generations of creators have been guided by the social function of art and
its capacity to transform lives and neighbourhoods even though its tangible and quantifiable
effects can be short-range and very localised. But also, it has been seen that artists have been
employed by the government to consolidate politically-oriented narratives using pre-hispanic
and colonial values as common ground to build a national identity.

The challenge is more complicated; the existence of facilities is not enough. What is needed is a
platform of intertwining relationships between the budget, commitment by the authorities,
tangible benefits for the population, continuity of the activities and the facility to be successful. In
this process, the premises are very important for the continuity in the case of the independent
groups; but it seems that the most important element is a policy able to open formal places to Co-
Creative initiatives.

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Shotter, J. (1984) Social accountability and selfhood, Oxford, Blackwell.

Soja, E. W. (1989) Postmodern geographies: the reassertion of space in critical social theory,
London, Verso.

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EIGHT

Co-creation, social capital and advocacy: The case of the Neighbourhood and Community
Improvement Programme in Mexico City

Karla Valverde Viesca and Dianell Pacheco Gordillo

Introduction

In this chapter, we suggest that community social capital generated in public programmes is one of
the key inputs for advocacy actions and therefore is a determining factor that impacts communities,
either through the results of its application or via the redesign of policies and programmes. Based on
this premise, we suggest that a cohesive process in a city should involve participatory action, engaging
with communities and making their inclusion in the decision-making process possible. These could
include co-creation, in two aspects. First, as a method that, with different actions, can promote a
process of cohesion. In this sense, as some authors of this book analyse it, Co-Creation uses art as a
catalyst and involves different actors to promote knowledge production. Through the development of
community social capital as described above, we believe, however, that co-creation has a second
sense as a participatory process that includes distinct actors and distinct actions to have an impact on
social cohesion in marginalised communities through the implementation of governmental plans. The
core aim of the chapter is to explore this second aspect of co-creation, through analysing the
experience of the Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme in Mexico City. Although
the main focus of this book is on the first aspect, we will argue that given the important benefits that
marginalised communities can gain from advocacy resulting in programmes implemented in close
collaboration with the state, this second aspect is not to be dismissed.

Currently, the crisis of representative democracy and the weakening of institutions in the world
encourages citizens to seek involvement in discussing public problems directly (Mounk, 2017; Martino,
2018). In this context, the idea of involving citizens in making decisions becomes relevant. In terms of
participatory democracy, the notion of citizen participation aimed at inclusion, empowerment,
articulation and sustained dialogue between multiple and plural actors assumes a fairer distribution
of power and the construction of a balance between civil society and the State. Some authors in this
volume consider that one of these options is Co-Creation, understood as a process that includes the
participation of civil society to achieve changes in public policies and programmes in public spaces by
bringing different stakeholders together and using artistic tools and expressions. That is, in other
words, one possible method to advocate for civil society gaining some power and influence over
decision makers, ensuring that they really respond to the social interests or dynamics that society
needs to resolve.

Some examples of advocacy in Mexico and in other countries of Latin America include community
development, participatory citizenship, participatory development, community intervention, citizen’s
participatory budget and co-production initiatives. Although these processes are not referred to as co-
creation, they can be found in some political advocacy campaigns in Mexico and could be identified
as co-creative actions. These processes involve communication and negotiation actions, but also

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decision making involving different actors. It is crucial for this book to look at, and discuss, experiences
like the Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme in Mexico City to identify social
capital-making processes promoting actions that support the articulation of stakeholders in a
community. The core aim of this chapter is to examine whether such advocacy processes can be
explored as co-creation initiatives on a larger scale of action to generate greater impact.

Participatory citizenship and setting agendas

One of the dichotomies established in philosophical and political traditions is the contrast between
the public and private spheres (Bobbio, 1989). Often these adjectives are used, in both common and
specialised language, as opposites that refer to property and collective life. According to Nora
Rabotnikof (1998) who draws on Habermas’ (1997) reflection about the public sphere, there are at
least three meanings that refer to what is public. The first, related to the common or the collective, is
opposed to private property or the logic of the market. The second is closely linked with an idea of the
state authority. The third refers to what is considered to benefit the community.

Knowing what happens in the public sphere and the issues that should be addressed is an important
task. A problem, in general, is defined in its own terms and in that sense a public problem would be
linked to the idea of the community in which it is defined. In the same way, as a dynamic process, the
participation and the definition of public policies depend on that community and their context.
Globalisation as part of the current context has modified the forms in which public problems and
policies are defined, especially through new interactions between organisations, individuals and the
ways of daily life, such as basic infrastructure, social security, health, and public security, among
others. Political actors then change the ways and conditions in which they publicly manifest and
manage their actions to define public problems and policies.

Therefore, the constantly changing nature of social and political problems today requires new
strategies from the actors, whether they are located inside or outside the circles of power, to be able
to seize the challenges and opportunities that arise in the public and in the political arenas to move
and renew structures of power. One of these actors is civil society organisations. They can be
composed of homogeneous or heterogeneous groups or sums of individuals with specific and
differentiated powers, but in general they can act in the political arena and are able to call for action
around a specific issue or community.

In Latin America, especially, the history of governments and the transition to democracy has long
delayed the understanding of the concept of advocacy and the emergence of civil society
organisations. Yet, over the past 30 years, (Elizalde et al, 2013; De Sousa, 2010) these questions have
resurfaced with such force that citizens have rethought their own role in the construction and
representation of interests, objectives and problems through new channels of participation that
question the order, structure and social processes, echoing the dynamic nature of civil society.

What does civil society do? It is very important to determine the actions in which civil society is related
to the government. As groups or organisations, civil society forces are constantly working to set the
agenda, to increase the benefits of public action, and to make the government listen to their

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complaints or needs. In Mexican congress there is a specific time to set the agenda and, in order to do
so, civil society organisations can protest, advocate, lobby or use institutional mechanisms to pressure.
The success of their actions can determine to what extent the community will be able access their
rights.

Different organisations may use different ways to approach a problem. Sometimes civil society groups
are asked to be involved through government initiatives, while in other cases they advocate getting
involved. The extent of their participation in political decision-making processes can be an indicator
of how well a problem can be resolved through the collaboration of all types of community actors.
Faced with institutional crisis and the eclipse of the State (Evans, 2007), some government
programmes involve citizens in the solution of social problems. In that sense, they constitute top-
down initiatives. One example of these is the Neighbourhood and Community Improvement
Programme in Mexico City.

Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme in Mexico City

We aim to explore the making of community social capital (Durston, 1999) in the Neighbourhood and
Community Improvement Programme both as an input in the decision-making process and as a co-
creative process involving different kinds of agents and attempts to get their issues on the agenda. In
this context, it is very important to understand the relationships between the wider society, local
communities and the government, bearing in mind that ‘the community social capital consists of the
structures that form the institutionalisation of community cooperation. It resides not only within the
set of interpersonal dyadic relationships networks, but also in the sociocultural system of each
community, in their legal, administrative, and sanctioning structures’ (Durston, 2003: 160) [authors’
translation].

The Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme (Programa de Mejoramiento Barrial,

PCMB) is community driven, as its name states, and since 2007 has been carried out by the Ministry
of Social Development of Mexico City’s government. The creation of the Programme itself is an
interesting example of a great coordination of effort by social movements and civil organisations. The
Programme’s main aim is to promote citizen participation in disadvantaged, marginalised or
vulnerable neighbourhoods. An important objective of the Programme is to develop a participatory
process of improvement and recovery of the public spaces of the towns and neighbourhoods of
Mexico City, especially those that, according to the Marginalisation Index of Mexico City (established
by The National Population Council), have a high degree of urban degradation or those suffering from
medium, high or very high levels of marginalisation. Over 500 million pesos (US$26 million/23 million
euros) have been disbursed to date and the Programme is ongoing, with 600 projects completed by
2012. In 2011 PCMB gained international recognition, winning the World Habitat Award sponsored by
UN-Habitat (World Habitat, 2011).

Projects within PCMB work on street lighting, paving the streets, sports and recreational facilities, rain
collection and sewage systems, parks and rainwater recycling, among others. It facilitates social
infrastructure projects, for example establishing community centres, houses of culture, parks,
recreational and sports areas, improvements of the urban image, museums, ecological projects,

97
skateboarding tracks, service works, expansion or improvement of existing works, among many
others, depending on the needs of the community.

The proposals that are funded seek to develop links between people who want to be involved in social
actions. After receiving training in financial and project management, the funds are distributed directly
to the local communities, who then become fully responsible for delivering the projects selected,
together with the support of the municipality. This Programme has funded almost 2000 projects
between 2007 and 2017, with more than 500 million pesos (US$26 million/23 million euros) involved
(see Table 8.1).

Table 8.1. Neighbourhood Improvement Community Programme – Number of projects approved

2007–17

Year Proposals Approved

2007 139 48

2008 273 101

2009 549 183

2010 752 199

2011 750 200

2012 780 249

2013 908 196

2014 999 208

2015 667 169

2016 758 185

2017 877 215

Total 7452 1953

Source: Own elaboration based on Hernández (2012: 77); Report on Internal Evaluation of the
Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme 2014. Evaluation Report 2019 in which
they report 2018 results being processed and not yet published.

Table 8.2 shows the kind of projects the Programme has funded in ten years. Their comparison allows
us to appreciate that most of them are oriented toward improving the urban image (693); retaining
walls (288) and constructing community centres (259). It is important to explain that proposals for

98
 these projects come from neighbourhoods with high indexes of marginalisation. In this sense, the
infrastructure problems and access to libraries, cultural centres and other community activities are
also issues that need to be solved. Also, new topics have been included in the calls for projects. For
example, in 2017 urban orchards and the rehabilitation of damage after an earthquake appear as
options to choose.

The approved projects have focused on the construction of community centres, and the restoration,
renovation, rehabilitation and rebuilding of other centres or public equipment. This does not
necessarily mean that they have also resulted in building and reinforcing citizen networks and social
capital. The Evaluation Report, however, provides some evidence in this sense. For example, in figures
it has been reported that almost 40 per cent of beneficiaries consider that the Programme promotes
participation in decision-making processes, 80 per cent are considered satisfied, 81 per cent believe it
attends to more than half of their needs and they generally give the Programme a score of 7.69 out of
10 (Evaluation Report, SIBISO, 2019).

A closer look at some examples such as the ‘Chavos Banda’ [Youth Band] Sports Centre, also called
Consejo Agrarista Mexicano [Mexican Agrarist Council] or the ‘Modulo Bosques’ [Forest Module]
allows for a better appreciation of the Programme’s impact. In the first case, the Sports Centre is
located in a marginal area in the Iztapalapa Municipality. The group is integrated by local gangs and
community members that asked for space in a wasteland to be turned into a recreation area to contest
violence (Mejora tu barrio CDMX, 2017). Members have links with a social organisation that promotes
social and cultural activities in different areas of the city. Today, after having obtained resources from
the Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme, the citizens and the Council for
Community Development [Consejo para el Desarrollo Comunitario A.C.] (CODECO) have a space in
which to offer sport and music activities, graffiti and aerographic workshops, computer services and a
radio station. There is even a drug addiction prevention programme run here.

Table 8.2 - Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme – type of intervention in

community public spaces 2007–17

Type of Project, According to the

Intervention of Public
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Total
Community Space Projects

Construction of Community
Centres: Libraries, Multipurpose
16 22 39 41 17 49 9 11 9 36 10 259
Rooms and Cultural Centre

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 1 2 2 5 3 1 0 5 2 1 2 24
Outdoor Forums Construction

0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Construction of Greenhouses

1 2 0 0 1 7 0 0 0 0 0 11
Construction of Auditoriums

3 2 4 31 48 52 58 38 41 11 0 288
Retaining Walls

4 3 3 8 19 11 13 9 4 4 2 80
Ridges Rehabilitation

3 4 4 7 6 8 22 17 13 19 21 124
Public Places Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation/Construction of
9 6 16 13 11 7 5 2 1 17 32 119
Sports Fields

Rehabilitation of Common
Areas, Green Areas, Parks,
7 27 38 32 27 49 26 31 33 17 25 312
Gardens, Play Areas

Urban Image (Fixtures,

Furniture, Arrangement of
4 32 77 62 68 65 63 95 66 74 87 693
Facades, Hallways Placement)

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 2 8
Urban Orchards

Rehabilitation of Damaged
Spaces after the 2017
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 34 34
Earthquake

Source: Author’s elaboration based on Hernández (2012: 77), Valverde and Gutiérrez (2018) and data
from Gaceta Oficial de la Ciudad de México (2019). Órgano de Difusión del Gobierno de la Ciudad de
México, enero 18. Ciudad de México, pp 253–88.

The second example is a project that was studied by Liliana González (2019) in the framework of a
larger study on social innovation in the Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme. In
her work, she emphasised the project ‘Modulo Bosques’ [Forest Module] as an initiative funded by
the Programme in which we can appreciate how social relations have changed the life of citizens and
how the community reports benefits from it. The project is located in the Bosques del Pedregal
neighbourhood in the southwestern part of the Tlalpan City Hall. As the interviews with the
beneficiaries of the project quoted below show, what was seen as the major benefits by members of
the community included the economic cost of workshops, the services for adults and children, and the
offer of activities and events responding to the demands of the residents (González, 2019: 72, 73, 97):

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 ‘It helps a lot. There is nothing here of workshops or anything. So, it does help children
reinforce some things. For example, in the case of my child [reinforce] English or to do sport
so they don't have a sedentary life. The fact of not having to pay private classes helps a lot,
because I pay ten pesos […]’ (Interview with Claudia Hernández in González, 2019)

Here I give a tattoo workshop. It is very common here for boys to go around in gangs. Let them
come to the Module and see that not everything in life is drugs. Let them see that they can do
more things and earn some money and be more useful in society. (Interview with Luis Alberto
in González, 2019)

At one point, I used the facilities. They lent them to me so that my daughter could rehearse
the dance for her 15th birthday. It is satisfying to see that there is such a place. And just like
me, there are several people who request it and lend it to us. That is, it has been for our
benefit […] (Interview with Guadalupe Martínez in González, 2019).

In her case study, González (2019) reports on some initiatives that sought to address different types
of vulnerability. They built a recreation space and, at the same time, improved the safety of the area
and the image of the neighbourhood as before it was a wasteland that was used as a garbage dump.
The activities and services offered at low cost help families on a low income, while some of the
activities taught by neighbours generate extra income for the workshop leaders. The activities also
bring greater cohesion among the residents of the neighbourhood; or, at least, more contact between
them.

In relation to the type of dynamics and organisation that arose for and from these initiatives (changes
in social relations), as González (2019) observed, leadership was fundamental for the organisation and
its operation. Although there was some leadership in the neighbourhood before, this initiative helped
to consolidate it and allowed coordination with other neighbourhood leaders in order to access
resources and increase their social capital through their new connection with the civil society
organisation ‘House and City’.

In general, the Programme encourages the participation of community organisations in the decision-
making processes, the use of public spaces for community development (accessibility, inclusion,
opportunities, motivation for skills improvement), and promotes an improvement in quality of life of
the community members by becoming active participants in the transformation process of their public
spaces (Hernández, 2012). Our focus is on social capital but is important to mention embeddedness
as part of the new relations and networks made by the Programme. In this sense and as a result of the
Programme, a renewal of social embeddedness and a boost to cohesion can be observed. This was
not part of the initial objectives of the Programme but rather a welcome, although unexpected,
outcome that has transformed the reality of these places.

In a recent evaluation of the Programme (Design Evaluation of the Neighbourhood and Community
Improvement Programme, 2014), citizen participation is highlighted as a key factor in linking the social
dimension (generating social capital, empowerment, new leadership, sharing identities and ending
social conflict) with the architectural dimension of neighbourhood renewal (construction design and
neighbourhood reconstruction).

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The voice of the community

The evaluations of the Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme have shown that
community involvement has resulted, among other achievements, in the construction of ties and
networks that benefit the community itself and allow it to participate in problem solving. It can require
a considerable amount of time for the community to build ties necessary for a stable level of
communication with decision makers. This type of communication can be carried out through
advocacy actions or campaigns.

Advocacy suggests a series of systematic efforts with specific political objectives. It could be suggested
that advocacy is an integral part of politics and that by not referring to any particular political sphere,
it touches on a range of issues such as environment, health, work, religion, rights and democracy.
Andrews and Edwards (2004) present advocacy groups as organisations that publicly claim certain
interests or demands, either promoting or resisting social change, which, if carried out, may generate
conflict with other social, cultural, political or economic interests or values of other constituted
groups.

In a 2012 study, Obar et al point out that ‘the advocacy group has distinguished itself from the political
party or conspiracy group in the sense that advocacy groups try to influence politics, but do not seek
to exercise governmental power’ (Obar et al, 2012: 4). This difference helps to understand the ways
of organising, the strategies and the scope of advocacy.

Participation in public challenges may be an engagement exercise if people are organised into an
advocacy group or they mobilise through advocacy actions. This type of transformation depends on
the human resources, networks, alliances, time and structure that materialise. In that sense, the
strengthening of social cohesion is key to understand how different actors in a community participate.

It is important to consider that advocacy is not the same as influence. The first responds to articulate
a position and mobilise support towards that position. The second could be direct action and implies
immediate power or capacity. If we see it from a practical point of view, influencing a policy can be
simpler and faster than ensuring that a wide range of opinions and viewpoints are expressed and
considered. Perhaps that is why Jenkins (2006), as a key reference in advocacy studies, defends the
idea of distinguishing between advocacy and the influences on an institutional or governmental
decision to create and execute a policy.

Jenkins (2006) first refers to advocacy, taking a restricted definition, with reference to Hopkins (1992)
as an act of advocating or declaring for or against a cause, as well as being in favour or recommending
a position in relation to the cause (including lobbying in the sense of addressing legislators with the
intention of influencing their vote). Later Jenkins also refers to Boris and Mosher-Williams (1998) when
they speak of a rights-advocacy that includes legal and court activities, surveillance in government
programmes and civic involvement around lobbying, attempts to influence public opinion, processes
related to educating and involving the community, and participating politically. Finally, Jenkins turns
to Reid (2000) to differentiate a political party from advocacy, saying that while the first version
focuses on those who make the governmental decisions, the second attempts to have an impact on

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public opinion, encourage civic and political participation and influence the policies of private
institutions or organisations.

These highlight how advocacy implies multiple meanings depending on the context and the moment
in which it is used. For example, if advocacy is referred to in legal terms, it will be related to certain
types of activities that are reported and therefore regulated. On the other hand, if used in research, it
requires the description of various aspects with regards to the representation, participation or
effectiveness of the processes. Or, if it is part of the discourse or the objectives of the organisations
themselves, then it will focus on the mobilisation of resources, capacities and influences.

Even recognising that it has multiple understandings, the advocacy concept faces several problems.
One of them is measurement. Given the variety of actions that can be undertaken, it is difficult to
quantify the intensity or magnitude of the effort that has been made. Another issue turns out to be
that of the multiplicity of actors that participate in the same activities and the areas in which these
actions are executed. Therefore, determining the direct results of the advocacy undertaken is
complicated. Defining the effects of advocacy actions is difficult and, in that sense, evaluating the
success of the activities and participating actors can be problematic. In addition, within the dynamics
of advocacy, there is the question for an organisation on whether to take direct action or to look for
other groups that can represent their interests. This last point is very important in the case of countries
with unstable participation structures like Mexico because organisations or groups have limited or
unfavourable political contexts to carry out advocacy actions within or through less visible channels
than those provided in countries with a democratic society that is stable and regulated. This is why
governmental initiatives that seem stable are questioned and inspected more frequently.

In the Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme, we clearly see the actions in which
organisations and communities mobilise their efforts to advocate for a proposal or to make their
project work. For example, they can rebuild a community centre, but their actions continue until the
community centre is in constant use. They advocate for problems or issues that they consider
important for the neighbourhood and look for solutions. The channels of communication between
stakeholders and all the actors in the community are open and stable, and the way in which they
interact with the government is demonstrated through the Programme that they themselves have
created. In that sense, the Programme has built a unique opportunity to advocate for the interests of
the community and has allowed efforts and actions to be taken on a higher scale.

Decision making and agenda building: A Co-Creative process?

In the case of the Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme, it has been shown that
the Programme has consolidated the networks between neighbours and the community. The social
fabric demonstrates greater cohesion and users report benefiting from the Programme. In terms of
co-creation, this process underlines two fundamental aspects: there is a push from the authorities to
create a mechanism in which citizens participate around a problem in their community, and there is a
participatory decision-making process.

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If co-creation means a participatory mechanism, there is no doubt that the Neighbourhood and
Community Improvement Programme includes this principle. If co-creation means having an open
dialogue between the community and the decision makers, the Programme facilitates this by allowing
civil society to advocate for their proposals and their needs. And if Co-Creation means a group of
actions that involves culture, creativity and social aspects, we can see that the approved projects aim
to create a new solution for public issues that involves all perspectives of community life, including
creative and cultural dimensions.

In Latin American countries, co-creative processes are common, either through governmental
programmes/initiatives (top-down) or in participatory exercises promoted by local organisations
(bottom-up). The challenge is to install these initiatives in the social fabric so that they transform social
interactions, integrate all kinds of actors and solve community problems. In that sense, the
Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme is an example of such initiatives, which
facilitates co-creative processes on a larger scale by installing bottom-up processes with lasting
dialogue and interventions that depend on a renewed social fabric where all the actors of a community
converge.

References

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Review of Sociology, 30(1): 479–506.

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México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Boris, E. and Mosher-Williams, R. (1998) ‘Nonprofit Advocacy Organizations: Assessing the Definitions,
Classifications, and Data’, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 27(4): 488–506.

De Sousa Santos, B. (2010) Refundación del Estado en América Latina. Perspectivas desde una
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Durston, J. (1999) ‘Building Community Social Capital’, CEPAL Review (69): 103 – 118

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PART I: CO-CREATION IN THEORY

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NINE

A top-down experiment of Co-Creation in Greater Paris

Ségolène Pruvot

Introduction

This chapter explores how Plaine Commune, the local authority in charge of urban development in an
area north of Paris, has implemented a ‘top-down’ art-based collaborative process, which may be
regarded as Co-Creation. The local authority commissioned artists to coordinate a citizen consultation
process, via a series of arts-based activities, about a major urban development project. The chapter
will analyse whether and how a process initiated by a public authority can be understood as part of
the Co-Creation method defined in this book.

This reflection will be anchored within the debates on Creative Cities (Florida, 2002; Landry, 2003),
investigating under what conditions Co-Creation could be used as a tool for building (more) just
Creative Cities. The chapter will look at how the project ‘The Football Pitch, the Player and the
Consultant’, an experience set within the frame of Plaine Commune’s strategy as ‘Territory of Culture
and Creation’, fits with the ten principles this book suggests for Co-Creation.

The project ‘The Football Pitch…’ was a two-year arts-based project, led by the artists’ collective
GONGLE (2017) and the cultural operator CUESTA in the Pleyel neighbourhood in Saint-Denis, France.
The neighbourhood is facing major redevelopment, driven by the construction of a large train hub of
metropolitan scale and of the Olympic Village and swimming pool for the 2024 Olympic Games. After
the two first stages of the project had been implemented, the author’s active involvement took place
in its last stage: a participative evaluation process. The analysis is based on qualitative interviews and
informal conversations with the artists and curators, civil servants working for the local authority and
other researchers, as well as on a review of extensive artistic documentation and local authority policy
documents.

The chapter will argue that, beyond its impact on the local community and on the urban development
project itself, the Co-Creation experience can be a methodology that local authorities could use within
Creative City strategies, as a first step towards innovation and changes in urban development
processes.

Co-Creation: a tool for (more) just Creative Cities?

This first section will investigate whether and how Creative City strategies can be made inclusive while
simultaneously exploring Co-Creation’s potential as a method to enforce a more creative relationship
between artists and local authorities.

There is extensive criticism within the academic community about Creative City strategies –
understood in international urban policy circles as the implementation of the Creative City (Landry

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and Bianchini, 1995, Landry 2003) and Creative Class (Florida, 2002) concepts within the policy field.
Several comprehensive literature reviews (Boren and Young, 2013, Nathan, 2015) have scrutinised
different aspects of Creative Cities, drawing attention to the fuzziness of the concept (Markusen, 2006;
Pratt, 2008; Evans, 2005) or reproaching it for hiding presuppositions and political conceptions (Evans,
2009; Krätke, 2010) and for being exclusionary, notably when it comes to diversity and gender
(McLean, 2014; Leslie and Cantugal, 2012; Gill and Pratt, 2008). Others argue that Creative City policies
may have adverse side effects on creativity (Peck, 2005; Martí-Costa and Pradel i Miquel, 2011) and
may create new inequalities (Hutton, 2017). This chapter takes stock of these criticisms and argues
that exploring the concept of the Creative City further is useful, notably since it continues to be highly
influential in policy circles (Boren and Young, 2012). Some researchers suggest that the ‘Creative City
Model’ (Jakob, 2010) could be revisited and that a new one, which builds on the potential to create
(more) sustainable and just cities can be proposed (Pratt, 2011; Ratiu, 2013; Leslie and Catungal, 2012;
Boren and Young, 2013; Kirchberg and Kagan, 2010; Kagan and Hahn, 2011). Creative City strategies
are more diverse than the initial assessments as a mere repackaging of neoliberal policies suggest
(Peck, 2005) and the 2008 financial crisis may have pushed local authorities to change their practices
due to limited resources available to cities (Miles, 2013; Vicari-Haddock, 2010). This chapter argues
that there may even be specific potential for Creative City concepts in stigmatised urban areas since
artistic activity can help re-appropriate and rework symbolic representations of place. The term
‘(more) just cities’ is based on the concept of justice developed by A. Sen in the Idea of Justice (2009).
In very practical terms, Sen calls for an understanding of justice that goes beyond ideal and suggests
trying to achieve justice means enforcing ‘more just’ situations, while acknowledging that other
conceptions of what is ‘just’ rationally coexist.

Most of the early literature on Creative Cities comes from the US and the UK, countries where the
national context can be considered closer to a ‘neoliberal’ model and which are marked by the
withdrawal of the state and cuts in municipal funding as well as by increased reliance on private funds
for urban development. Compared to these two countries, a larger state intervention in urban
development projects and more public funding for culture are still characteristics of the French
context. Creative Cities literature also often focuses on inner city neighbourhoods and creative
quarters. Plaine Commune has developed a complex and inclusive understanding of the Creative City
– at least on paper. Plaine Commune is a type of area that is currently under-researched in the
literature about Creative Cities. Located within the deprived periphery of a large metropolis, the local
authority is a grouping of nine smaller municipalities in the northern first ring around Paris, in one of
the poorest areas of the metropolis, the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, which continues to
experience impoverishment (IAU, 2009) (see Figure 9.1). Historically a working class area, it is also
known as the Red-Belt as it has been characterised by a strong communist presence in local
government since the 1920s, which continues today. The area currently acts as an entry point for
newly arrived migrants. In the city of Saint-Denis, about 40 per cent of the population was born outside
France (against 18 per cent in the whole Ile de France region) and 30 per cent of the population is of
foreign nationality (against 13 per cent in the whole Ile de France region) (INSEE, 2013).

[INSERT Figure 9.1 near here]

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The area is complex. Nationally it is highly stigmatised for including some of the poorest housing
estates or ‘cités’, which have experienced civil unrest movements since the 1980s. It is known for drug
trafficking, violence in high schools and has more recently been depicted as a place where extremist
Islam and terrorism develop, as exposed in the controversial book published by two journalists
Inch’Allah (Davet and Lhomme, 2018). Culturally, Seine-Saint-Denis is known as the birth place of some
of the most famous French Rap bands from the 1990s, as demonstrated by songs such as ‘Seine-Saint-
Denis Style’ by NTM (1998) and ‘Saint-Denis’ by the slammer Grand Corps Malade (2006).
Economically, the area is changing rapidly. Seine-Saint-Denis is the third biggest area in terms of the
concentration of businesses in the Greater Paris metropolitan region. Despite showing high levels of
unemployment, it hosts 10 per cent of enterprises and jobs of Ile de France (Lebeau, 2018). In terms
of urban development, due to the pressure on land for mega projects within Paris metropolitan area,
Saint-Denis is likely to undergo radical change in the coming years. Several projects of metropolitan
or national scale have already transformed or are in the process of transforming the area significantly.
In 1998, driven by the building of the Stade de France, a new neighbourhood hosting tertiary activities
grew up around the stations of the suburban metropolitan rail network (RER) in the southern part of
Saint-Denis, la Plaine. The area now hosts a new metro station, adjacent to the new University hub
named Condorcet. Opening to its first students in September 2019, the latter aims to become an
international hub of knowledge generation and exchange. The two main driving forces for change in
the area are now the construction of the Grand Paris Express – the new transport infrastructure of
Greater Paris whose main interchange hub in the north of Paris will be located in the Saint-Denis Pleyel
neighbourhood – and the Olympic Games, with the construction of two major infrastructure projects
both located in the immediate vicinity of Pleyel: the Olympic Village and swimming pool.

Within the new conceptualisation of the Greater Paris metropolis by the state and local public
authorities, Plaine Commune has been positioned as ‘Territory of Culture and Creation’. Policy
documents suggest that Plaine Commune took up the proposal from the state to concentrate fully on
creative industries and turned it into a project that better reflected the political interest of its elected
representatives. The start of the process can be situated around 2010. It was boosted by a double
movement, initiated simultaneously by the local authority and by the state. Plaine Commune
commissioned the ‘Mission Nuage’ (Cloud Mission), to an artist and a specialist in cultural policies. The
objective was to identify cultural places and to make recommendations on how to stimulate arts and
creation. Concomitantly, after the creation of Greater Paris metropolis (the 2010 Law) and the
finalisation of a transport plan for the metropolitan region (Grand Paris Express), the state proposed
to focus on creative industries. The final contract between the state and the local public authority
includes a larger conception of creation and uses the terms ‘culture and creation’:

From an urban development project limited to perimeters around the train stations,
accompanied by the ambition to develop a ‘cluster of creative and cultural industries’ in the
area, the partners have gradually evolved into a much broader project, covering the entire
area (…) Culture and creation have been identified as some of the main characteristics of the
area but also as tools that have a transversal leverage power to strengthen its development.
(Territorial Development Contract 2014, 9) [author’s translation]

The area links the objectives of creation and culture with that of social justice:

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 ‘the objective is to aim for a city that is more participative, more united and more ecological
through culture and creation’ and insists on enhancing participation: ‘Plaine Commune makes
culture and creation a medium to develop the participation of inhabitants and citizens in
projects of renewal and urban transformation’. (Call for Tender, 2016: 3) [author’s translation]

This objective is closely connected with the issues of sustainability and the implementation of agenda
21 in policy documents.

‘The Football Pitch…’: local authority led Co-Creation?

The project ‘The Football Pitch, the Player and the Consultant’ can be understood as an example of
Co-Creation initiated by a local authority, with the objective of changing the way urban development
is implemented. One can draw from this that Co-Creation is a tool implemented as part of the Creative
City strategy of Plaine Commune. This section provides an overview of the project and explains why it
can be considered as Co-Creation. The author was actively involved in the participative evaluation
process of the project and at this occasion, led qualitative interviews and informal conversations with
the artists and curators, public servants working for the local authority and other researchers.

The arts-based project ‘The Football Pitch…’ was commissioned as part of the urban development
project. The originality of the process lies in the fact that it was supposed to inform and accompany
the urban planning of a large area of strategic interest, the Pleyel neighbourhood. The call for
proposals asked for an ‘artistic and cultural approach for the implication of the inhabitants in the urban
project of the sector Pleyel’. The project that was selected aimed to make stakeholders’ voices heard
in a different way using the resources of sports and theatre. For a duration of two years, it was co-
managed by the theatre collective GONGLE and an innovative cultural operator, the cultural
cooperative CUESTA. All the stakeholders interviewed pointed out that this was a first experiment, in
which the local authority was taking risks because it had no clear control of the process, which was
left in the hands of the artists. The choice of the cultural operator was not consensual within the
administration: it did not receive the support of all elected representatives.

The Pleyel neighbourhood had been earmarked for ambitious development projects of metropolitan
and national significance. It is a low occupation area, with some small housing units. Today is hosts
7,200 inhabitants and more than 13,000 employees, including those of large employers such as EDF
(an ex-national electricity company that employs 3,000 people) on site. The neighbourhood is to be
almost completely redeveloped. The new plans include a new highway interchange and a new train
station – to be designed by the Japanese star-architect Kengo Kuma and which will receive an
estimated 250,000 users per day. Around the train station the new development project ‘Pleyel Lights’
will host 143,000 m2 of offices (45 per cent of new constructions, including 10 per cent for the cluster
‘creation’). The nearby Olympic Village will be turned into up to 2,400 housing units and 119,000 m2
of offices after the Olympic Games.

According to the project website, ‘The Football Pitch…’ was ‘based on the practice of sports
commentaries proposed to use "games" and voices to grasp and invent possibilities for Pleyel’
(TUMBLR of ‘Le terrain, le joueur et le consultant’, translation by author). The project had two

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objectives, according to the artists: (1) to collect narratives on the space and the urban development
project from various stakeholders (from residents to architects, from local authority civil servants to
social actors) and (2) to inform the urban development project. The project unfolded in three stages,
which involved 67 workshops and a major final event called ‘Big Encounter’. During the first stage, the
artists met with more than 200 local stakeholders in the area. The objective was for them to
understand the issues at stake and to meet stakeholders. The second stage was the artistic
competition, during which ‘football’ teams were composed. Co-Creation, in the sense of active and
creative involvement of participants, happened at this stage. The football teams reflected the diversity
of the area’s users and inhabitants: one was composed of employees from EDF, another of young
users of the local facility for youngsters. The others included teams of public servants, of architects
and developers, of residents of an area with small detached houses, of parents from the school and
so forth. Each team created its own song and sports outfit. All teams met at the ‘Big Encounter’ (see
Figure 9.2), a one-day artistic-sports competition. The third stage was an ‘after-game’ period, in fact,
a collaborative evaluation process.

[INSERT Figure 9.2 near here]

The 10 Co-Creation principles and ‘The Football Pitch…’

This section will discuss how Co-Creative this project was, in terms of its fit with the ten Co-Creation
principles identified in this book and will explore whether this project can be regarded as an example
of a successful Co-Creation process initiated by a local authority.

The fit with the Co-Creation principles is necessarily imperfect since there was no link with the project
at the time. The parties involved did not expressly use the term Co-Creation but rather those of co-
construction, involvement and participation. The analysis focuses on the principles that seem the most
relevant in that case: 1. Equal; 2. Respectful; 3. Ethical; 4. Shared property; 5. Trust-based; 6.
Embedded; 7. Aware; 8. Plurivocal; 9. Active; 10. Creative. The chapter also provides an analysis of
how the project seemed to score regarding the objectives formulated by the artists and the local
authority.

The attention to the inequality (1) of voices (8) between those of the local authority, planners and
residents was taken into account from the beginning of the project. As the call for tender states:
‘Plaine Commune wishes to implement a co-constructed artistic and cultural project, to involve the
inhabitants and users in the definition and implementation of the urban project, as full-fledged actors.
This approach will feed the programming of the future district and some aspects of local life’ (Call for
Tender, 2016: 3) (translated by author).

The artists were called upon by the local authority to create new participation dynamics, to change
power relationships in the preparation of the urban plans and to give participants a ‘fully fledged’ role
in the process. The artistic project becomes a medium for the confrontation of ideas on new grounds.
According to the main artist-curator, she took on a role as ‘mediator’ between the different teams.
She highlights that being engaged in playful artistic projects allowed ideas to be expressed and to be

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listened to differently by all parties. The teams take part in the game on equal footing and the
dynamics of power are transgressed at least temporarily due to the change of setting and the different
use of the participants’ bodies. The local authority civil servant then in charge of the project highlights
that sitting on the floor in a sports facility dressed in sportswear and on an equal footing with the
youngsters created for him the opportunity to listen to voices that he would not have been able to
hear otherwise. The game allows confrontation and criticism to be expressed and heard. One of the
most informative outcomes of the process is the book of songs. Some of the songs are directly critical
of the project, such as the song ‘Let’s unite, join us’ with its lyrics: ‘The project proposed by the public
authority team destroys classified landscaped areas. The hubbub of the world, chaotic traffic, of all of
this our eyes are tired (…) let's get together, join us, we will change the terms of the debate!’ They can
also express cynicism: ‘how long will it take to wait for metro line 16? We will see the winners and the
losers. (…) Buildings, a football pitch, barbecues, hotels. Tomorrow, no more problems, we have villas’.
Beyond confrontation, the songs also express positive comments: ‘there will be dust but for a good
cause. Solid, pleasant, beneficial for children’. This was pointed out as unusual by the civil servants.
Even the local authority civil servants felt free to express their doubts and hopes: ‘working today to
go towards tomorrow, without being overtaken ... do we have the means of our ambitions?
Associating, consulting and building bridges. Are we all there for this new challenge?’. The main artist-
curator highlights that the project may have acted as a space for formation of political ideas, by
creating groups that identify and articulate ideas, which are not in line with that of the local authority,
or with her own views.

Even if the number of directly involved participants in the ‘players’ teams (around 40) may appear
limited, there was an ongoing involvement of many actors, which are beyond the usual suspects of
regular consultation meetings about urban planning development projects.

Embeddedness (6) and Awareness (7) are also at the core of the project, thanks to the long
preparatory process, the first stage of the project, during which the artists met a large number of
stakeholders in the neighbourhood (200). To ensure embeddedness, many of the events were
organised to coincide with usual meetings, such as the traditional start-of-the-year cake-eating
celebration in January or the neighbourhood festival, and existing events of local associations. The
‘Football Pitch…’ also chose the local facility for youngsters as a home and placed new information
there regularly.

The principles of Trust (5), Shared property (4) and Creative outcomes (10) are more problematic. In
terms of ‘Trust’, the participants did have several occasions to share informal times together, the ‘Big
Encounter’ being a celebration as well as a competition. However, if the artists engaged in the project
for two years, their involvement was inevitably limited in time. Discontinuity was to happen at the
end, once they had finished the project. The curation and animation of the project were largely left to
them, even if they benefitted from the organisational back up of Plaine Commune in terms of access
to facilities and use of the local authority contact book. The main outcomes (10) of the project are
available for free online on the project’s website, including audio postcards, reports, photos, songs.
However, some of the content produced within the project, notably during the evaluation was, in the
end, refused in the final publication by the local authority. For instance, the use of the concept of
‘aestheticisation of public policy’ in one of the texts did not please the local authority, a
misunderstanding on the meaning of the concept according to its author. In terms of Ethics (3), from

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the beginning the expectations for the artistic process sounded quite ambitious for a two-year creative
project with a relatively low budget – 76,000 euros for the whole period. The artistic team had to rely
on interns and contributed much of its time for free.

For the local authority, there were

three objectives for this artistic and cultural process: 1) To tell the story of the neighbourhood
and to project oneself into the neighbourhood of tomorrow; 2) To feed the urban project
through an experimental in situ approach; and 3) To contribute to strengthen the links
between the inhabitants, the users, the actors of the district and to create attachment to the
district and the city. (2016: 3)

As regards ‘telling the story of the neighbourhood’, the objective seems achieved: visual (photos and
photomontages, maps), audio (audio postcards), and written and digital tools have been used to
capture the reality of the neighbourhood at the time of the project. The songs written by the teams
testify of the achievement of helping people to ‘project oneself into the neighbourhood of tomorrow’.
There has not been any measure developed to assess the achievement of the third objective
‘strengthen links (…) and to create attachment to the district’. The main limitation relates to the
second objective. There was a disconnection in terms of timing between the urban planning study and
the artistic process, due to the failure to recruit an artistic team at the end of the first call for tender.
There was, in the end, little space for the needs expressed by residents and users to be taken into
consideration in the preliminary urban development study. The urban planner in charge of the
development project within the local authority mentions that he got from the process new elements
of understanding of the area, such as the signification of the Pleyel Tower. This old tower – considered
an outdated asbestos-filled tower by the local authority – was pinpointed as a landmark in the
neighbourhood by residents. “I'm against [destroying the Tower] because it is our emblem, when the
young take pictures, there is always the tower in the background; when my children were young and
we were coming back from the countryside, they saw the tower, they used to say ‘We are at home’”
reported a resident (quoted in the workshop report #12 (2017: 112). He also mentions that, in the
short run, the local authorities would be more attentive to the expectations of the resident population
during the urban transformation, instead of focussing only on the final output of the urban project.
But the artistic team did mention on several occasions that they were doubtful about how much of
the process would actually be used in the final development. The local authority says that the
documentation of the project will be attached to the documents passed on to the final teams realising
the urban projects. Its actual take-up will depend on the interest, intentions and obstacles met by
these teams. The scale of the redevelopment has quite severely constrained the potentialities of the
artistic project from the beginning; the deadline imposed by the Olympic Games too. There was little
the artists – and even Plaine Commune – could do to influence a process that involved powerful and
complex actors such as the state, the Olympic Games Committee and a major developer. The final
project Pleyel Lights as presented on the website of the developer looks closer to a ‘neoliberal’
Creative City development with expensive beautiful landmarks and buildings than a space for a (more)
just city. Simulations made by the developers show an imagined city that does not cater for the existing
population of Saint-Denis but is directed to attracting a new population (mostly young and white).
Further contacts with the developers would be needed to explore that issue in more depth.

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Co-Creation as the premise of innovation in public policy making?

The chapter asked whether the new approach developed by Plaine Commune could lead to a (more)
just city. The ‘different’ reference to Creative City concepts presented by Plaine Commune in policy
documents in the context of this project seems to only have a limited impact on the actual content of
urban development. From public documents available, it appears to be a quite classical neoliberal
revenue-making development, in which culture is used as a cool and beautiful accessory. The project
includes two glass ‘bubbles’, one of which is to be used for cultural and artistic events. A group of
artistic institutions and collectives is developing an artistic project for the space but no reference is
made to the process of Co-Creation or co-construction, despite it being at the core of Plaine
Commune’s strategy as ‘Territory of Culture and Creation’. Different visions of the Creative City are at
play and stakeholders do not have the same power of influence on major urban development projects.
The pressure of the Olympic Games and the involvement of powerful and complex stakeholders such
as the state and Grand Paris Express on the development of the new train station, make this particular
artistic project one of secondary importance.

To make Co-Creation processes initiated by public authorities a useful methodological tool for policy
making, obstacles that ‘The Football Pitch…’ came up against should be addressed. Within Plaine
Commune, there were several obstacles to making the artistic project a full component of the urban
development project. A lack of political commitment is one of them. One elected representative came
to the ‘Big Encounter’ but he did not stay for long, nor seemed to listen to the inhabitants, according
to the artists. The relationship with and involvement of other stakeholders is also a key issue. It may
have been possible to engage the developers and state actors in more in-depth involvement. The low
budget allocated to the project is another limitation. The question of the instrumentalisation of artists
is also relevant. In this case, despite low financial return, the project allowed the curator to pursue
her own artistic research, so she accepted the terms of the contract. The limited impact of the
participatory process on urban development remains an issue and the legacy and usefulness of such
Co-Creation actions must be thought through in the long term.

The willingness of local authority planners to change the way they plan cities in the future may be one
of the most interesting prerequisites and outcomes of ‘The Football Pitch…’ and of the experiment as
part of ‘Territory of Culture and Creation’ implementation. With ‘The Football Pitch…’, the local
administration took a risk. It is process-based and leaves no physical trace – no new artistic space to
promote, no new public space installation, no major street level activity. The most interesting
outcomes are quite intangible and difficult to measure: the participants from the local authority
mention that it changed the way they were now leading urban project development processes, that
it gave them the feeling ‘for once’ to be really in touch with the area, to be able to listen to the people.
They felt that the process gave “meaning and humanity” to the planning process. The local authority
has tried to address the difficulty of transferring such experience from one person to another and
from one project to another. The civil servants involved in the project have made several presentations
to their peers to share their learning. The local authority has a team dedicated to the implementation
of the strategy transversally and organises regular sectoral training. The objective is to reach out
beyond the civil servants who are the most inclined to change their own practices. Plaine Commune
has, after this experience, changed and adapted the way it issues calls targeted to artists, and as a
result of a call in another area of Saint-Denis, a new collaboration is beginning with the same artists’

115
collective, but with a different planning team. The local authority has started a collective reflection
process on these issues, which led it to organise a workshop in the Architecture Biennale in Venice in
2018, which gathered artists, developers, promoters and local authority representatives.

Conclusion

This article proposed an understanding of Co-Creation that includes projects initiated by other
stakeholders than researchers, as long as the objective is the co-production of knowledge about a
deprived and stigmatised area.

This book has defined Co-Creation as a method that brings together different communities in a
neighbourhood (researchers, residents, artists and stakeholders) to use arts-based methods to
generate creative outputs that are relevant to the local community, and that act as a catalyst for
reflection on understanding around urban and neighbourhood challenges, and address these to build
more socially-just places for the future. (Chapter 1)

The project analysed in this chapter, ‘The Football Pitch…’ – an experiment set within the frame of
Plaine Commune’s strategy as ‘Territory of Culture and Creation’ – does not fully comply with this
definition, notably in that researchers did not actively take part in all stages of the project. However,
‘The Football Pitch…’ did include many of the elements of Co-Creation. Participants from all key groups
– local residents, artists, stakeholders involved in decision-making and researchers – were actively
involved at different stages of the project. The main objective was the co-production of knowledge
about a deprived and stigmatised area. We have shown that ‘The Football Pitch…’ put into practice
several of the ten principles this book suggests for Co-Creation, more particularly the following ones:
1. Safe; 2. Respectful; 3. Ethical; 6. Embedded; 7. Adapted; 8. Voice. The key challenge remains the
application of the principles linked to co-ownership and trust.

In our case study, the actual impact of the artistic process on the urban development plan remains
uncertain and the local politicians and most powerful actors, such as the state, have been relatively
absent of the project. In many ways, these pitfalls are similar to those of classic residents’ consultation
and participation in urban planning developments. If Co-Creation was to be used as a tool for building
(more) just Creative Cities, the stakeholders should pay specifically attention to these principles when
implementing artistic and creative projects with residents.

Our case study provides an example of how involving artist can change the dynamics of listening to
each other in an area, can disrupt – at least temporarily the relations of power – and how an artists’
led project can have a strong impact on local authority civil servants’ practices of urban planning.
Charles Landry, one of the authors who formulated the Creative Cities theories, suggested that
Creative Cities were those able to implement innovative “organisational structures” and “creative
thinking” (1995, 2000). From the experience of ‘The Football Pitch…’, it appears that this form of Co-
Creation, involving artists and local authorities, could trigger changes in local policy making in the long
run, potentially making them more inclusive and sensitive to other ‘voices’. We have shown how
artists can act as seeds of innovation and displacement, how they can act as mediators between
stakeholders. Co-Creation could be a method for inclusive Creative City strategies by calling in artists

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to help develop new ways of making the city together by opening spaces of listening between urban
planners and other stakeholders.

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TEN
Literary festivals as Co-Creation? Challenging territorial stigmatisation in alternative ways
Christina Horvath

Introduction

This chapter takes a comparative approach to two initiatives, one from the Global North and one from
the South, that have been developed by writers to bring literary events to peripheral neighbourhoods.
The Dictée des Cités, a spelling competition organised by Rachid Santaki in French cities since 2013,
and the Literary Festival of the Urban Periphery (FLUP), curated by Julio Ludemir and Écio Salles in Rio
de Janeiro’s favelas since 2012, were not conceived as Co-Creation events but are founded on similar
principles and processes insofar as they promote art and creativity in marginalised urban areas and
seek to challenge the perception of these neighbourhoods as places devoid of the production and
consumption of literary texts. The aim of this chapter is therefore to compare the two artist-driven
events and explore their respective strategies to engage with local communities and broader
audiences. Based on interviews and ongoing dialogue with the organisers of both events, the chapter
seeks to tap into their extensive experience of knowledge production with communities to see what
Co-Creation can learn from their practices and how it can inspire them in return. A secondary aim is
to evaluate how collaborative literary events adapt to specific local challenges in the Global North and
South.
Chikako Mori (2012) sees the persistent overlooking of scriptural practices in the urban margin as a
deliberate denial of high-brow cultural forms in stigmatised areas. She reminds us that French
banlieues are often represented in public (political, media and academic) discourses as places that fall
short of a written culture recognised and validated by the establishment. According to Mori, the non-
recognition of banlieues as places of reading and textual production comes from a desire to reaffirm
a longstanding divide between high- and low-brow cultures, based on the understanding that writing
is not quite a cultural practice like the others, insofar as it has always been perceived and used to mark
the line separating ‘us’ and ‘them’, both inside the Hexagon (fight against regional languages) and
outside (colonial ideology): in this representation some are perceived as ‘literate’, ‘civilised’,
‘enlightened’, ‘masters of themselves’ and others as ‘uneducated’, ‘barbarians’, ‘obscure’,
‘uncontrollable’ (Mori, 2012: 75 author’s translation). This observation is also confirmed by Bettina
Ghio (2016), whose research highlights that French rap artists’ complex relationship with and
contribution to high-brow literature is generally ignored, or by Keira Maameri, whose 2016
documentary, Nos Plumes (Our Pens), shows how bestselling French novelists having postcolonial and
banlieue roots like Santaki himself continue to be marginalised by mainstream literary institutions.
Similarly, from the earliest days of samba, Brazilian favelas have consistently been associated with
popular musical genres rather than with a vibrant literary scene (Maddox, 2014). In recent years,
favela youths have been actively engaged in different musical movements from hip-hop to
AfroReggea. According to Patrocínio (2013), these contributed to inspire the emergence of an avant-
garde literary movement called ‘Marginal Literature’ in the peripheries of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
since the 1990s. Hip-hop was also instrumental in providing peripheral youth with alternative
identities, feelings of self-affirmation and ‘a sense of protest, creating a counter-discourse, erasing
hegemonic discourses and producing an interstice between centre and periphery’ (Patrocínio, 2013:

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107, author’s translation). However, in spite of their participation in literary production, favelas just
like banlieues continue to be referred to as ‘primitive’ and ‘savage’ and depicted in opposition to the
formal city perceived as ‘civilised’ (Maddox, 2014: 466).
This chapter will systematically compare the two festivals’ attempts to shift the image of peripheral
urban areas in France and Brazil from ‘zones of non-writing’ (Mori 2012) to places of written culture.
The first section will explore their similarities and differences. The second section will place them in
the Global North/South divide to shed light on their different participation in knowledge production.
The final section will compare the two events’ ethos, aims and strategies with those of Co-Creation.
The conclusion will discuss how Co-Creation projects and socially engaged literary festivals could learn
from each other.

Destigmatisation through art in two literary festivals

La Dictée des Cités (the Dictation of the Periphery) was launched in 2013 by writer and journalist
Rachid Santaki in collaboration with community activist Abdellah Boudour, president of the
association Force des Mixités (Strength in Diversity). Santaki, who lives in Saint-Denis, Greater Paris, is
a journalist, essayist and novelist, author of several scripts and crime novels set in the area. As an
engaged writer, he seeks to “be active beyond writing books, to play a role in society, to take the
books outside the library” (Santaki, 2019) using strategies ranging from pasting posters in the street
to promote his novels to teaching creative writing in prisons or launching cultural initiatives.

The Literary Festival of the Urban Periphery (FLUP) was also founded by writer, journalist, novelist and
cultural producer Julio Ludemir and Écio Salles, a poet, essayist, former Cultural Secretary of the
municipality of Novo Iguaçu and one of the coordinators of cultural group AfroReggae. The festival
was established in 2012 as a counter-event to Brazil’s most prestigious book fair, the International
Literary Festival of Paraty (FLIP) which has been held annually since 2003 in the seaside town of Paraty.
The FLUP has both challenged and extended the international festival model adopted by the FLIP
(Heyward, 2017) by seeking to make literature accessible to all, reaching out to the over one million
people living in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas (Perlman, 2013: 52).

Both the Dictation and the FLUP are itinerant events with strong community roots, although they both
have experienced important mutations over time. The first Dictation was an outdoor event organised
in May 2013 in Clichy-sous-Bois (Greater Paris) before spreading to other banlieues around Paris. Later
it was held in other cities across France and was even exported to Italy, Belgium, Cameroon and
Morocco (Boucher, 2019). Its size expanded from an initial average of 40 to 200–400 participants
(Dictée Géante website). In May 2017, the event reached its 100th edition in Bagnolet (Brancato, 2017)
and earned Rachid Santaki the rank of Knight of the National Order of Merit. The Dictation’s 200 th
edition was celebrated at the Elysée Palace In 2019. A record 1473 participants were registered in
March 2018 when the largest dictation ever held took place in the iconic sporting venue Stade de
France. According to Santaki “it was something incredible because so many things happened around
this simple exercise we all had at school but never outside it” (Santaki, 2019). To reflect its mutations,
the event changed its name from La Dictée des Cités to La Dictée pour Tous (Dictation for All) and to
La Dictée Géante (Giant Dictation). For the organisers, this transition meant an increased potential to
connect to more diverse audiences but also a shift in focus:

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 “In fact, the first version of the dictation was staged in the neighbourhood and was perceived
as an event in the periphery. […] It was a way to respond to the clichés, to show that banlieue
residents liked dictations just as much as people in the centre but as a side effect it contributed
to enclosing participants in the margins and seemed to suggest that people in the periphery
had their own dictation. […] Things changed since as soon as we took the dictation out of the
neighbourhoods, it actually allowed people to mix. […] Today, organising a dictation and
bringing all the audiences together allows for a neutral meeting ground. I think that the
dictation has made it possible to create a bridge between these publics which do not
necessarily meet. But there are so many differences between these audiences that the
dictation is just one meeting point, other instances of sharing and transmission need to be
invented to go even further.” (Santaki, 2019)

Similar to the Dictation, the FLUP is also a nomadic event. The first five editions took place in different
Rio de Janeiro favelas: Morro dos Prazeres in 2012, Vigário Geral in 2013, Mangueira in 2014, Chapéu
Mangueira in 2015, Cidade de Deus in 2016, and Vidigal in 2017. Yet in 2018 the festival broke with
this tradition by moving to the Valongo Wharf, a UNESCO world heritage site where enslaved Africans
were traded, while the 2019 edition was held at the Museum of Art in Rio (MAR). Initially called FLUPP
(the Literary Festival of the Pacifying Police Units), the festival progressively distanced itself from the
police pacification process that started in 2009 by moving from pacified favelas to an unpacified one
in 2013 and by “freeing itself from the UPP [Pacifying Police Unit] brand after the decline of the
pacification policy” (Ludemir, 2019) by changing its name to the Literary Festival of the Urban
Periphery. The change of location from favelas to cultural institutions in the city centre was
simultaneously motivated by the difficulty of negotiating with a range of new stakeholders in a
different favela every year and the desire to draw attention to racism, sexism, homophobia, the
legacies of colonialism and slavery, reminding audiences that ‘the idea of the “periphery” in this
festival extends beyond the geographical sense to include communities and identities that are
marginalized in society’ (El Youssef, 2017).

While the two events share similar goals, they use different strategies to reach these. Dictations are
one-day events based on classical literary texts which are read out loud and have to be spelled by the
participants. This school exercise traditionally used to test students’ spelling skills has been turned
into a game to attract wide audiences to literature, reconcile postcolonial populations with the French
Republican school system which they often resent and demonstrate that “the French language
belongs to all and can be enriched by the participation of others and adopt different forms according
to the context” (Santaki, 2019). The FLUP’s annual programme, on the other hand, unfolds over five
consecutive days and includes round table discussions, activities for children, performances and other
celebratory moments. The festival’s main innovation, however, is the ongoing rather than one-off
engagement with the host communities which helps build relationships, involve local actors and
stakeholders, create a community of readers, challenge the stigmatisation attached to the urban
margins, and ultimately to nurture a new Brazilian literature from below through discovering and
forming new talents. According to Heyward:

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 The FLUP engages a territory in a year-long, bottom-up creative process before conducting
tailored writers’ and readers’ workshops over a series of months. […] The community consultation
and co-creation process is key to developing ongoing relationships with residents and integrating
a variety of genres and tools in the festival’s programming. (Heyward, 2017: 1)

Thus, both the Dictation and the FLUP use artist-initiated events based on literary texts to engage with
mixed audiences and dispel preconceptions about peripheral populations. Their differences lie in the
varying depth and length of this involvement and its more or less creative nature as well as some
structural dissimilarities caused by the North-South divide.

Literary festivals in the context of the Global North-South divide

Although France and Brazil occupy different positions in the global economy, their present-day social,
educational and cultural inequalities are deeply rooted in the discriminatory practices of colonisation
leading to lasting divides between educated elites and stigmatised postcolonial populations in both
countries. Due to the accessibility of books and higher literacy rates, the percentage of regular readers
in France is much higher: 91 per cent (Pech, 2017) as opposed to 56 per cent in Brazil (Failla, 2016).
According to Mustafa Dikeç (2017), the current stigmatisation of French banlieues is shaped by a
strong colonial legacy, a persistent imaginary based on distinctions between populations and
civilisations believed to be superior or inferior:

The Republic is at once the product and the producer of racialized social relations through its
public policies and official discourses. […] The working-class banlieues of France bear the
weight of this colonial legacy. […] Through policies and discourses, the State perpetuates,
indeed reproduces, forms of colonial domination in the banlieues. (Dikeç, 2017: 104)

This legacy explains that in the country that achieved the world’s third highest literacy rate in 2002
(0.987 against 0.905 in Brazil, EFA 2002), an important divide persists between the populations of
metropolitan centres and the residents of low-income banlieues. The latter have distinctively lower
literacy rates, higher numbers of non-native speakers of French, weaker school performances and
higher concentrations of students experiencing difficulties. A recent study on illiteracy revealed that
in 2011, 27 per cent of the population aged 18–65 in the so-called ‘sensitive urban zones’ or ZUS
experienced difficulties when reading and writing, compared to only 11 per cent of those living outside
these areas (Rapport de l’Observatoire national des zones urbaines sensibles, 2013: 133). Since 1981,
schools in these areas have received extra support from priority education policies enabling them to
reduce their class sizes, offer higher remuneration for teachers and allocate extra time for small-group
activities. A reform in 2017 transformed the so-called ZEPs (Priority Education Zones) into Priority and
Reinforced Priority Education Networks (REP and REP+) and extended the scheme to 1095 geographic
areas encompassing 21 per cent of public school students aged 11–15 in about 8000 schools across
France. Yet, according to a government report published in February 2018 (Rosenwald, 2018), both
REP and REP+ areas still have a significantly higher percentage of socially disadvantaged students

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whose parents are either unemployed or manual workers and these students have a considerably
lower competency in the French language: 15-year-old students entering the sixth and final year of
college tested at the beginning of the 2015–16 academic year scored only 60 per cent against 83 per
cent in schools outside REP areas (Rosenwald, 2018: 2).

While these statistics explain why French banlieues are seen by some as ‘zones of non-writing’ (Mori
2012: 75), other studies (Van Zanten, 2001, Caillet, 2005, Beaud and Mauger, 2017) highlight the
existence of a prevalent ‘anti-school sentiment’ in these areas (Beaud and Mauger, 2017: 35). For
example, during the 2005 riots several schools were torched (Dikeç, 2017). Banlieue residents’
mistrust toward the Republican education system is rooted in a complex range of factors: racially and
socially biased practices targeting students of postcolonial origin (Beaud, 2002); curricula promoting
colonial values; anti-Muslim policies culminating in the banning of the headscarf in French schools
since 2004 (Dikeç, 2017); and the orientation of children of immigrant or working-class parents
towards vocational training at an early age, which impedes their social mobility while maintaining
former hierarchies (Van Zanten, 2001).

Brazil’s marginalised urban population is similarly linked with colonial history. The abolishment of
slavery in 1888 brought significant numbers of freed slaves from around Brazil to Rio de Janeiro in
search of affordable housing (Freire Medeiros, 2013). Freire Medeiros suggests that ‘in the absence
of public policies capable of providing housing for those in need, [favelas] emerged as a solution based
mostly on the self-construction of homes in territories where building was formally forbidden – areas
beyond the reach of the formal real estate market’ (Freire Medeiros, 2013: 57). From their inception,
favelas were configured as the ‘space of the poor’, both geographically and culturally, and by the
1920s they were durably associated with samba and carnival. Although these products of Afro-
Brazilian counter-culture were integrated into the national culture and identity by the regime of
Getúlio Vargas in the 1930s (Yúdice, 2003), the economic and social marginalisation of favela residents
continued throughout the Brazilian dictatorship from 1964 till 1984, and even after the
democratisation that started in 1985. Perlman (2013) notes that the arts have played an important
role in the resistance to marginalisation in Brazil too:

In the wake of the return to democracy, community groups, federations of community groups,
and non-profits working in favelas flourished. Some of these promoted the rights of citizenship
and attempted to correct past social injustices. Others were organized around cultural
activities such as theatre, dance and filmmaking, sports […] or around reclaiming weak or even
lost racial or ethnic practices. (Perlman, 2013: 151–153)

Perlman argues that the distinction between the worthy in-group and the unworthy out-group
remains strong in a country where 34 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line and the
top ten per cent of the population earn 50 per cent of the national income, while the poorest 20 per
cent earn 2.5 per cent of the national income (Perlman, 2013: 48). She suggests that although racial
and spatial stigmatisation remain strongly interlinked, the fact of living in a favela remains more
stigmatising than people’s skin colour. The criminalisation of favela residents in the fields of the media,
local administration and public policies reinforces this stigmatisation (Lacerda, 2015) and the fight

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against drug trafficking is frequently used as a pretext to justify aggressive policing that denies the
residents’ human rights.

Ireland (2008) states that the distribution of quality education among the Brazilian population is one
of the most unequal in the world and functional illiteracy rates remain high (Ireland, 2008: 718). This
mainly affects the elderly, the indigenous and black populations as well as those living in rural areas
and in the North-East of Brazil. Besides the important socioeconomic disparities that make books
unaffordable for many, the main obstacle to reading is illiteracy. In 2006, Brazil registered over 13
million illiterate youths and adults, representing 10.38 per cent of the country's population (Rodrigues
Mello and Marini Braga, 2018). As a result of the ambitious adult literacy programmes introduced
under the Lula presidency, this number was reduced to 11.8 million people (7.2 per cent) in 2016 and
11.3 million (6.8 per cent) in 2018 (Indio, 2019). According to Julio Ludemir, the FLUP has capitalised
on the success of these education policies to train new readers and authors (Ludemir, 2019).

Despite some similarities regarding the territorial stigmatisation, racial discrimination and educational
disadvantages experienced by banlieue and favela residents, there are also important structural
differences between the Global North and South. While most researchers agree on describing class
and race issues in Brazil as a ‘social apartheid’ (Resende, 2009, Lacerda, 2015), references to a
‘postcolonial urban apartheid’ in France remain sporadic (Silverstein and Tetreault, 2006, Tchumkam,
2015). In French banlieues, governmental, regional and municipal structures are in charge of running
schools, community centres, libraries, theatres, houses of culture and cultural events. In Brazil’s
favelas, most cultural institutions are maintained by the efforts of local and foreign associations,
volunteers and NGOs. The neoliberal turn of the 1980s, which in the Global North resulted in the
retrenchment of the welfare state and ‘the reduction of state-subsidised social services, the lowering
of wages and the evisceration of labour rights’ (Yúdice, 2003: 82), had a somewhat different effect on
the Global South where the welfare state has never been fully developed and unskilled labour has
been less affected by unemployment (Perlman, 2013: 159). In both parts of the world, however, it has
triggered a turn to civil society, transforming culture into the main arena of progressive struggle led
by the most innovative actors (Yúdice, 2003: 88).

North-South differences also prevail in the domain of knowledge production and epistemology
understood as the critique and validation of scientific knowledge. As previously argued in the
introduction, the epistemologies of the North have attracted significant criticism in recent years for
their ‘pretence to be the planetary centre and the desire and design to homogenise the world to its
image and likelihood’ (Mignolo and Walsh, 2018: 194). Due to the unequal relations of power, they
succeeded in imposing the mirage of their universal validity upon the totality of cultures colonised
(Quijano, 2010). However, with the rise of decolonial theory, the embodied and technically and
culturally intrinsic social practices of Southern epistemologies born from the struggle against
capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy have been increasingly recognised and the necessity of
decolonising Eurocentric ways of knowledge production has been gaining ground (Santos, 2018).
FLUP’s efforts to collect and conserve favela residents’ practice-based knowledge and oral memories
in events like the ‘Feijoada da Memória’ (Memory Meal) which will be discussed in the next section
can be considered as part of decolonial strategies aiming to erase hierarchies between Northern and
Southern ways of knowledge production.

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Finally, the North-South divide is also encapsulated in both events’ different access to public funding
and national and international institutional validation. The Dictation mainly relies on national and
municipal funders including France Culture, the Centre of National Monuments, municipal and
regional councils and ministries (La Dictée Géante website), while since the decline of state support
the FLUP receives most of its financial support from private sponsors (such as Ford) and foreign
institutions (among others the Open Society Foundation, the French Institute, and the British Council)
(Ludemir, 2019). The Global North is also known for concentrating the most prestigious literary
institutions, publishing houses and globally-known literary prices (Casanova, 2007) which act as
instances of legitimation by validating new writers and introducing them to global audiences. The
London Book Fair’s International Excellence Award awarded to the FLUP in 2016 is a good example of
the international power of legitimation which is still mostly held in the Global North.

The literary festivals through the Co-Creation lens

This final section will assess the two events’ aims, ethos and strategies through the lens of Co-Creation.
According to the definition championed in this book, Co-Creation is a method of collaborative
knowledge production that relies on socially engaged artistic and cultural practices to provide
communities with opportunities for self-understanding and resistance to the dominant social
imaginary. Co-Creation brings together artists, researchers, residents and stakeholders from
disadvantaged neighbourhoods to generate tangible and intangible, creative and intellectual
outcomes relevant to the community. Arts practice is embedded in Co-Creation workshops in which
all actors are recognised as equal participants actively taking part in both the creative process and the
knowledge production which are inseparable from each other. A deeper understanding of different
perspectives on the neighbourhood, the divided city and social justice emerges from the process
spontaneously as a by-product of the engagement with art used as a leveller to enable different voices
to be heard.

Like Co-Creation, both festivals use literature to destigmatise disadvantaged urban audiences and
build capacity by engaging participants in arts-based practices. Co-Creation generally works with small
groups of participants and seeks to develop strong, trust-based relationships between them through
collectively set goals, discussion and time spent together, shared creative and bodily experiences and
communal meals. The two festivals, however, seek to reach out to broader audiences in timeframes
that are often too short to establish such solid links. Dictations are one-off events that attract 200–
400 participants on average and promote a limited engagement with creativity insofar as the activity
they promote consists of reading and writing out extracts of classical texts. Original texts are only
produced on special occasions, such as for World Refugee Day in June 2019 when Rachid Santaki set
up a wall “on which each participant wrote words and expressed, in the form of drawings, their ideas
but also their feelings” (Santaki, 2019). According to Santaki, the Dictation is less about creativity and
capacity building than about bringing together schoolchildren, middle school and high school
students, adults, people with disabilities, learners of the French language, and institutions involved in
the fields of education, culture and sport who would not meet otherwise. Santaki insists on equality
between participants:

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 “The Dictation provides means for all participants to be equal when it comes to words. It is
above all an event about the French language that can be enriched by the participation of
others and adopt different forms according to the context in which it takes place.” (Santaki,
2019)

However, participants are unlikely to be equally involved in the literary activities as these are not co-
designed by them: the texts that are read are chosen by the organisers without consulting the
participants and thus the divide between those who dictate and those who participate in writing out
the dictation remains unchallenged.

As a larger-scale event, the FLUP brings together several thousand participants for five days each year.
It also includes a series of creative workshops run by artists and academics over a number of months
leading up to the festival. Workshops like the ‘Laboratory of Black Narratives for the Audiovisual’ run
in partnership with TV Globo are quite similar to Co-Creation workshops in that they produce creative
outputs and help young people from the urban periphery to develop their creative skills and self-
esteem. For organiser Julio Ludemir, the FLUP’s greatest achievement is having launched over 200
writers from the periphery of Rio, among them bestselling novelist Geovani Martins from Rocinha,
poet and cultural producer Vivi Salles from Cidade de Deus, and internationally recognised writer and
filmmaker Yasmin Thayná from Nova Iguaçu:

“The first two editions of the workshops resulted in the creation of 56 original stories for
television, several of which have been accepted for screening. In August and October 2018 we
organised poetry slam workshops in 14 public high schools in Rio de Janeiro. By 2018, we
organised four workshops leading to the publication of five books and 25 original audio-visual
documents, a politically engaged fashion show which drew attention to the killing of black
youths by the state and a documentary about the first generation of black professionals
arriving to the job market after passing through the quotas. Achieving this was a challenging
process for which significant human and financial resources were mobilised.” (Ludemir, 2019)

Similar to Co-Creation, the FLUP engages academics, artists, communities and stakeholders in
collective creative processes and shared bodily experiences by bringing together disadvantaged and
more privileged audiences to spend time together in favelas. Its workshops have resulted in the
publication of several collective volumes but unlike Co-Creation, these activities are not co-designed
by the participants and researchers are largely absent from the creative process. It is important to
note that while scholars have been regularly involved in teaching creative writing and filmmaking on
FLUP workshops, they do not contribute to these as researchers.

While research and long-term engagement with the same community are less central to FLUP than
Co-Creation, forms of shared understanding may nevertheless arise from the regular workshop
activities in which artists, academics and other participants share ideas and work together towards a
shared goal. Engagement with communities’ local and orally circulating or embodied knowledge has
been nevertheless central to FLUP’s repeated attempts to reassemble oral history and community
memory. For example, the ‘Feijoada da Memória’ (Memory Meal) introduced in 2015 in Babilônia

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brought together the favela’s founders with the younger generations and resulted in a comic strip
exhibition based on the history of the inhabitants. In Cidade de Deus, FLUP co-produced a book
celebrating 50 years of the favela and in 2017 in Vidigal they staged with local partners a ‘Memory
Competition’ for children and adolescents (Ludemir, 2019). These events are just a few among the
many FLUP initiatives that encourage the inclusion of Southern epistemologies through the
valorisation of oral narrative modes. Oral culture and spoken word practices inspired by African griots
and hip-hop artists from the Northern urban periphery have also been celebrated through the FLUP
Slam Battle, which, according to Julio Ludemir (2019) has been offering a platform for youth from Rio
de Janeiro’s margins to voice their indignation over homicidal security policies and racial and social
discrimination. These arts-based practices aimed at abolishing extant hierarchies between oral and
written forms of expression are strategies that could be adopted by Co-Creation seeking to engage
with knowledge emerging from social struggle in the Global South (Santos, 2018: 13).

Through arts practice, Co-Creation encourages communities to critically engage in ‘questioning

unexamined beliefs […], disarticulating the existing common sense and fostering a variety of agonistic
public spaces’ as advocated by Chantal Mouffe (2013: 95). Therefore, Co-Creation workshops can be
considered as ‘agonistic’ interventions insofar as they promote democratic processes and encourage
political adversaries to respect each other’s discordant viewpoints. By bringing together scholarly and
embodied ‘ways of knowing’ arising from academic and non-academic perspectives and from both
Northern or Southern epistemologies, a shared Co-Creation develops an agonistic understanding of
the city which can be translated into actions that can lead to practical and potentially transformative
change. Co-Creation aims to harness participants’ capacity to challenge and dismantle multiple
stigmas attached to disadvantaged neighbourhoods using ‘complicated gestures of rewriting,
strategies of decontextualizing’ (Rosello, 1998: 18). This aim is shared by the two festivals although
they challenge negative perceptions of the urban periphery to different extents, using different
strategies. While both demonstrate that both banlieues and favelas are places fit to host high-brow
cultural events, only the FLUP seeks to promote new aesthetics emerging from the margins. By
focusing on classical texts and spelling rules set by the famously conservative French Academy, the
Dictation shows respect to literary conventions, institutions and canons validated by the
establishment. On the contrary, by launching and endorsing new writers, the FLUP contributes to
shaping alternative canons while simultaneously establishing itself as an alternative instance of
literary validation. The efficiency of this strategy can be measured by the FLUP’s recent success of
imposing its ethos on other festivals. For example, its efforts to increase the number of female
invitees, to include indigenous and black writers, to honour marginal writers such as Lima Barreto in
2016 and to draw attention to racism by introducing FLUP Preta (Black FLUP) in 2019, have been
imitated by the more traditional FLIP literary festival and have resulted in the emergence of new
national trends (Ludemir, 2019).

Finally, both literary events and Co-Creation seek to promote the inclusion of peripheral populations,
although their ambitions in this respect vary. Rachid Santaki admits being sceptical about the
Dictation’s potential to challenge negative stereotypes:

“With the Dictation, I don’t think we have changed the image of the banlieue and I don’t
believe that an event can change the image or the stigmas of the periphery. I rather think that
I surprised audiences who did not imagine that the French language concerned everyone,

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 including people living in the periphery but I did not change the perception of those who
believe in the clichés.” (Santaki, 2019)

Julio Ludemir advocates a more radical approach inspired by affirmative action that promotes the
participation of marginalised groups, in particular women, black and indigenous populations and the
LGBT community. Despite the obvious differences between the French and Brazilian contexts, both
festivals aim to bring art and literature closer to underprivileged communities and open up a space
for public participation through active engagement with literary texts. Although Co-Creation is more
focused on producing in-depth knowledge at the neighbourhood level, it may struggle to build such
extended networks and raise such high levels of media attention due to its limitation to single
neighbourhoods.

Conclusion

The literary events promoted by Rachid Santaki and Julio Ludemir are artist-initiated, participative
projects that celebrate the margins and promote the inclusion of disadvantaged groups into the
mainstream city and society. They highlight the importance of artists as initiators, organisers and
promoters of multi-partner events which bring together several Co-Creative elements (being
respectful, ethical, plurivocal, and sometimes also embedded, aware and creative) while others (being
equal, trust-based, shared, occasionally also embedded, aware and creative) are missing. Just like Co-
Creation, these events are founded on the ideal of equality and inclusivity and share Co-Creation’s
interest in marginality and arts methods. They may, however, lack some other key elements such as
research practices involving academic partners, the explicit focus on knowledge production and
dissemination, and the active production of artistic outcomes which plays a more central role in the
FLUP where new literary works are produced, than the dictation where literary works are mostly
consumed.

The comparative analysis of both events showed that, while organising touring events such as in the
FLUP may be more time-consuming that setting up Co-Creation workshops with a more steady focus
on specific small communities, they may benefit from a greater visibility which enables them to change
national canons, pressure institutions into becoming more inclusive, produce new inclusive spaces for
participation, generate new audiences and enable marginal voices to emerge and to be heard. Such
events have the potential to attract significant public attention to urban and social margins and
challenge stigmatising discourses about ‘the periphery’ perceived as areas of ‘non-reading’, places
devoid of high culture. However, arts-based events that are not rooted in a specific community and
do not rely on scholarly research and partnerships with academics and community activists are also
more vulnerable due to their greater dependence on the organisers’ individual efforts, charisma,
availability, and commitment. Academic collaborators bring to Co-Creation projects not only symbolic
legitimation and knowledge validation but also potential sources of funding and a greater degree of
institutionalisation that can be key to make projects sustainable. Co-Creation, in return, needs to learn
from the engagement of literature-based events with embodied knowledge and oral forms of
expression which have been particularly prominent in FLUP’s practice. This can help Co-Creation go
further in the inclusion of Southern epistemologies in knowledge production.

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The author gives her heartfelt thanks to Rachid Santaki (Dictées des Cités, Saint-Denis, France) and
Julio Ludemir (FLUP, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) without whose insight and comments this chapter could
not have been completed.

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ELEVEN

When Co-Creation meets Art for Social Change: The Street Beats Band

Juliet Carpenter

Introduction

The concept of Co-Creation has been interpreted in this volume from a variety of perspectives:
approaches from the Global North and Global South, from the perspective of scholars working with
artists and NGOs on co-creative projects, as well as from the angle of non-profit organisations,
instigating projects that bring together artists and communities to co-create knowledge and new
understandings in marginalised neighbourhoods. This present chapter draws on work by the author
on the interface between two conceptual frames: the notion of Co-Creation (Carpenter and Horvath,
2018) and its intersection with the ‘Art for Social Change’ movement (Marcuse and Marcuse, 2011),
exploring the role that creative arts collaborations can have in knowledge creation to effectuate social
change.

The use of the term Co-Creation in this chapter aligns with that set out in the Introduction to this
volume, that is, the collaboration of a constellation of different actors (artists, local residents,
researchers, community groups and other stakeholders) in cultural production, to address societal
challenges such as marginalisation and stigmatisation (see Pahl et al, 2017 for a discussion of
academic-artist collaborations). However, as the chapter will illustrate, the boundaries between these
different actors are fluid, given that the notion of Co-Creation challenges the rigid binaries between
‘academic’ and ‘non-academic’ participants, and the boundaries between professional and non-
professional artists. Wrapped up with this fluidity of roles are the way in which the balance of power
plays out and shifts between different participants in a Co-Creation project.

This chapter seeks to demonstrate that while the methodology of Co-Creation holds critical potential
as a tool to challenge stereotypes and marginalisation, it nevertheless operates within the structural
constraints of deeply embedded power hierarchies and hegemonic discourses that dominate received
narratives. Drawing on the example of a Co-Creative project, the Street Beats Band (SBB), a
community-based percussion band in Vancouver, Canada, the chapter argues that while such projects
have potential to build community, empower participants and effectuate change in daily lives, it
cautions against framing Co-Creation as a catch-all panacea for social exclusion and marginalisation,
given the differentials of power that thread through urban society, related to class, gender, race and
post-colonialism.

Conceptual frames: Co-Creation and Art for Social Change

As other chapters have demonstrated, there are a number of different interpretations of the notion
of Co-Creation, as understood in the context of this volume. Chapter 1 draws up a general definition
of the concept, which involves the Co-Creation of knowledge and understanding around
marginalisation, through the collaboration of residents, artists, researchers and urban stakeholders in

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creative arts practice. One of the key components is the disruption of existing hierarchies of
knowledge production and social power, bringing together alternative perspectives through
collaborative creative practice in order to interrupt traditional thinking and challenge stereotypes.

Co-Creation also necessitates a fluidity of functions, blurring the boundaries between traditional
knowledge producers (researchers) and creative practitioners (artists), as well as collaborating with
others who may have no previous association with either group (Haviland, 2017). This duality of roles
is paramount in the process of Co-Creation, involving crossing disciplinary boundaries, exchanging
skills and understanding, and collaborating with people from different backgrounds. Co-Creation
involves crossing borders, so-called ‘fuzzy boundaries’ (Gubrium et al, 2014) between professional and
non-professional artists, between researchers and residents as knowledge producers, traversing
borders which are by implication wrapped up with power hierarchies, both within the project and
more broadly at a community or societal level. The hybridity inherent in Co-Creation implies the need
to balance interests, a mediation of alternative understandings and ambiguities which need to be
negotiated by those involved in creative production.

There are crossovers between the notion of Co-Creation and the field of ‘Arts for Social Change’ (ASC)
(Marcuse and Marcuse, 2011). ASC can be defined as ‘Art that is created collectively by groups of
people (who may not self-identify as artists) about what matters to them, through arts or dialogic
processes that are facilitated by an artist or group of artists’ (Yassi et al, 2016). It is more focused on
creative production for social change rather than on knowledge production and engagement with
researchers. The key focus of ASC is, therefore, the artistic production and the social change that may
result from it. Co-Creation, on the other hand, emphasizes knowledge production, as well as a strong
relationship between researcher and artist in that process, with the creative output acting as a vehicle
for knowledge production. However, the two processes have distinct similarities. Both approaches
involve professional and non-professional artists in creative collaboration to explore social issues and
engage with participants to find new ways of seeing and understanding their worlds. There are also
parallels in relation to the power dynamics at play, both visible and hidden, that need to be addressed
within a reflective framework of ethical practice.

Projects harnessing ASC can be driven by different agendas. In exploring participation in art projects,
Bishop (2006) argues that there are three main motivations for community engagement in the arts:
First, the desire to create empowered and active subjects through arts practice, who are then
catalysed to determine their own social and political realities. Second, the desire to de-hierarchise art,
to share or hand over authorship from the artist to the community. Third, to develop stronger social
and community bonds, through “a collective elaboration of meaning” (Bishop, 2006: 12). ASC projects
are driven mainly by the first motive, with the overall objective to allow participants to take control of
their social and political worlds.

However, with both Co-Creation and ASC, it is important to engage with the critical debates around
the use of arts in social change and community-engaged practice. Some argue that creative practice
should not be reduced to a tool to achieve social outcomes, but rather should be seen as a legitimate
end in itself (Gray, 2007). Others point to the tension between what is defined as ‘quality art’ in
traditional arts practice, versus the more flexible standards that are applied to community-based arts
involved in Co-Creation and ASC (Belfiore, 2002). For example, in community-based projects, there
can be friction between the emphasis on excellence of the outcome as assessed through the criteria

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of aesthetics, versus the value of the creative process itself, the artistic journey, and the value that
this brings to participants as an end in itself. These debates are important to be aware of when
considering Co-Creation and ASC projects and will be explored further in the context of the Street
Beats Band, a ‘found object’ percussion band in Vancouver.

In relation to the methodology, the chapter draws on a number of different sources of data, including
documentary evidence such as the funding application for the Street Beats Band project and other
publicly available sources and a total of 15 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders and project
participants which were completed in 2018–19. These included community and professional
musicians, ‘binners’, non-profit organisations involved in the project and representatives from the
municipal funder. A total of five semi-structured participant feedback surveys were also completed
after the final concert performances in November 2017, which were used in the analysis to feed in to
an assessment of the project that was completed by the author in July 2019. The next section provides
a background to the project and the constellation of collaborators involved. The chapter then explores
the ‘materialities’ of the Street Beats Band project and the issue of power relations and then draws
conclusions on the possibilities for Co-Creation to address social inequalities.

Street Beats background

This chapter is based on the author’s collaboration with the not-for-profit organisation ‘Instruments
of Change’, which is based in Vancouver, Canada. Instruments of Change was set up in 2008 by
professional flautist and academic Dr Laura Barron. The organisation aims to empower people to
become ‘instruments of transformative change’ in their own lives (Instruments of Change, nd). It leads
a variety of co-creative, socially engaged projects that work with marginalised communities, both in
the Global North and Global South, using musical expression as a vehicle for change.

Much of the work of Instruments of Change is situated at the interface of the two conceptual strands
of Co-Creation as defined in this volume, and ASC, that is, broadly speaking an artistic engagement
that impacts social change. This broad definition can take a variety of expressions with different
combinations of professional and community participation, but in general, Instruments of Change
categorises their projects in one of three ways: (1) work that is community-created and community-
presented; (2) work that is community-created and professionally-presented; or (3) work that is
community- and professionally-created, and community- and professionally-presented. According to
Instruments of Change, when work is co-created with the community and professional artists (models
2 and 3), this tends to generate greater social change, with a more sophisticated art output, greater
levels of expressivity, and wider audiences that may be reached, than if the work is created and
presented solely by the community.

One of the projects led by Instruments of Change from 2015–17 was the ‘Street Beats Band’ (SBB)
project, which aimed to bring together different communities in Vancouver to rehearse and perform
a pre-composed percussion work at the New Music Festival. The Festival was organised by the
International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) in Vancouver in November 2017. The Street
Beats Band project falls under the third model above, as the work was both community and
professionally created and presented.

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The Street Beats Band was a two-year project that aimed to bring together a constellation of different
actors, including Vancouver’s binner community, professional musicians and other community
members, to collaboratively co-create and perform a large-scale specially-commissioned percussion
piece, within the framework of an international music festival (Community Arts Grant Application
Form, submitted by Instruments of Change to Vancouver City Council, 2017, unpublished).

The project developed in two phases and involved multiple communities. The first phase ran from
September 2015 to November 2016 (Year 1) and started by engaging members of Vancouver’s binner
community and paying them to source recyclable materials to be converted into musical instruments.
The binners are Vancouver’s recycling community, who collect redeemable containers and other
materials from garbage bins across the city to generate income through refunds received at recycling
depots. Instruments of Change partnered with the Binners’ Project, a non-profit advocacy
organisation that coordinates the binners’ waste collection throughout the city on a weekly basis, to
work with a group of binners to source materials, clean them up and repurpose them as the Street
Beats Band’s percussion instruments. These ranged from simple buckets, cans and pans to ‘created’
percussion instruments, such as a shaker made from a tennis ball container half-filled with quinoa.

The project then recruited 40 community members in four different locations across Vancouver to
rehearse and perform on these instruments as part of the Street Beats Band. Following six weeks of
rehearsals, this urban percussion community band gave two performances at the Roundhouse
Community Centre in Vancouver in November 2016, as part of the Modulus Festival run by the not-
for-profit organisation ‘Music on Main’. This first phase of the overall project was exploratory,
investigating the different sounds and rhythms that could be achieved by the four community groups
using the ‘found object’ percussion instruments, exploring the levels of rhythm complexity that the
community were able to sustain, and possible teaching strategies to help the players learn the work.

The second phase (Year 2) tied in with Vancouver’s hosting of the ISCM World New Music Festival in
November 2017, which was also led by ‘Music on Main’. The Vancouver-based composer, James
Maxwell, was commissioned to write a piece for the Festival, and following Year 1 of the project, he
subsequently incorporated some of the rhythms and motifs that were created during that first phase
into his new composition, “Eight or nine, six or seven”. He also accompanied the binners on alley walks
and collected soundscapes, both of which also informed the compositional process.

Some 20 community participants then worked in three ‘pods’ or ‘mini-bands’, each led by a facilitator,
to learn the specially-commissioned work over six weeks, which was then performed in two shows at
the ISCM Festival, on the ‘found object’ percussion instruments before an international audience. The
Street Beats Band were also joined by a nine-piece professional brass ensemble from the Music on
Main All-Star Band which including six trombones, a tuba and two professional percussionists, with
the whole composition being mixed in with recordings of sonic urban soundscapes (e.g. traffic sounds,
birds, and rain) that the composer had sampled in the city. The key components of the Street Beats
Band project are presented in Figure 11.1.

However, although labels are used to categorise the collaborators (musician, composer, facilitator,
etc), in reality and in line with a Co-Creative approach, the boundaries were blurred between roles.
The instigator, Laura Barron was also an academic, a musician and facilitator. The community
participants performed alongside professional musicians in the International Music Festival,
challenging traditional views of the profile of a ‘professional’ musician. Furthermore, the composition

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itself was also co-created in response to the community participants, as it was re-written by the
composer in light of the community’s initial experimentation with the binners’ found instruments,
thus disrupting the hierarchy between professional composer and community musician, through the
incorporation of the community’s inputs into the composition. Similarly, during rehearsals, the
professional musicians, composer and conductor all needed to play a leadership role, but also a
facilitating and empowering role. There are no rigid binaries between the roles of researcher, artist,
non-profit organisation and community participant, but rather, there are a set of complex, layered
and shifting experiences that overlap between them. These are fluid categories where individuals can
pass from one to another according to their role in a particular situation.

Figure 11.1 - Key contributors to the Street Beats Band Project

 Instruments of Change: The project champion, a not-for-profit organisation that runs

community arts programmes, that aims to empower people to use the arts, and music in
particular, towards transformative change in their lives. Led by Executive Director, Dr Laura
Barron, who is a professional flautist and was a full time academic for ten years, now
dedicates her time to Instruments of Change.
 Music on Main: A non-profit organisation that programmes music events in the city and
was the lead on Vancouver’s bid to host the ISCM New World Music Festival in 2017. Led
by David Pay.
 The composer: Vancouver-based composer, James Maxwell.
 The Binner Community: Engaged through the Binners’ Project, a number of binners were
employed to collect or ‘curate’ the instruments at the beginning of the project.
 Participants from the community-at-large: Recruited through four Community Centres in
different neighbourhoods throughout the city in Year 1, and through further music-related
networks in Year 2.
 Facilitators: Three professional musicians, employed as facilitators to guide the community
participants in their learning and practice, and lead the performances.
 Conductor: Professional conductor, Janna Sailor.
 Music on Main All-Star Band: Professional musicians who accompanied the community
Street Beats Band with brass and additional percussion sections, in the two performances
at the ISCM World New Music Festival, November 2017.
 Audience members: Who attended the Modulus Festival in November 2016 and the ISCM
Festival in November 2017.
 City of Vancouver: The funder of the project, through the Community Arts Grant
Programme.

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The materialisation of Co-Creation through the Street Beats Band

Co-Creation through the Street Beats Band started with the involvement of the binners in curating the
percussion instruments at the beginning of the project. Binners are very much a part of Vancouver’s
downtown community, a constant presence on the street, collecting redeemable containers from bins
to sustain their livelihoods and divert waste from landfill. Yet their status in the city is marginal, often
conflated with panhandlers, and stigmatised due to the nature of their work. The SBB instigator, Laura
Barron, built up relations with the binner community over more than a year, to create trust and
confidence, and to “gain an appreciation for their expertise, and really humanising them, and getting
to know them as people, and being privileged to witness their work” (interview, 31 October 2018). A
number of binners were paid to collect materials that could be curated as percussion instruments and
were accompanied on their alley walks to collect materials by Laura Barron, and the composer James
Maxwell, who observed how they listened to the city, and how they sifted, sorted and selected
materials (such as buckets, cans and pans) that could be repurposed as instruments. In this way, the
binners themselves contributed to the Co-Creation of the composition, not only through providing the
instruments but also through giving the composer insights into their perspectives on the city, which
also fed into the composition (Figure 11.2).

[Insert Figure 11.2 – The binners curating instruments]

The very act of paying the binners for their time had a significant impact on their self-esteem, as it
demonstrated the value of their work and an appreciation of their knowledge of the city and their
skills in sourcing materials. They were proud to present the materials that they had found on the alley
walks. It was also an engagement that involved planning beyond the immediate week ahead, which is
the normal time scale of the Binners’ Project. Many binners are challenged to think beyond the coming
week ahead, due to complex issues of mental health, addiction or inadequate housing. Their
involvement in the project was longer term, stretching over a month, so it challenged participants to
think beyond the immediate week and to project themselves forward and plan ahead.

In fact, it was anticipated at the beginning of the project that the binners would be involved much
more closely throughout the two years, including taking part in the final performance, which was
anticipated as being a ‘Binners’ Symphony’. However, this longer-term engagement proved
unworkable, given the difficult lives that many binners lead, working long and exhausting hours, and
not being able to commit to a long-term project. One of the binners was more closely involved, in both
curating instruments, attending rehearsals and performing in the first year show, but ill health
prevented him from continuing into the second year. So, while the binners were an integral part of
the SBB, through Co-Creating the instruments, their absence in the final performance meant that the
public audience was not fully aware of their involvement and were not fully challenged about their
preconceptions of the binner community.

The final performance, however, did involve a wide range of some 20 participants, from a variety of
neighbourhoods in the city, and from different backgrounds, cultures and generations (see Figure
11.3). The experience gave participants a strong sense of community related to the project, in a

137
supportive atmosphere, as the conductor noted: “the little boys would be helping the grandmas with
their rhythms” (interview, 14 November 2018), and helped to build confidence amongst participants.
One facilitator appreciated “the different inputs that different walks of life could bring to the group”
(interview, 7 February 2019). Another participant noted that: ‘Making music together is a one-of-a-
kind bonding experience. People I considered strangers just weeks ago have become a part of me’
(Campbell, 2017). Respondents commented that the strength of the community created through
participating in the project was an important outcome of their involvement.

[Insert Figure 11.3 near here – The Street Beats Band performing]

Although the Street Beats Band was not focused on community participants gaining a voice in a
situation where they may have felt marginalised, as with other ‘ASC’ projects, it opened up other
possibilities, such as the opportunity to play alongside professional musicians, with other benefits of
confidence building, the discipline of rehearsals, the focus and time management required, and
collaborative skills of working in a group.

Additionally for the binners, further opportunities also opened up from the SBB – to be involved in a
parallel project run by Instruments of Change in local schools, speaking to school children about
repurposing waste as part of their environmental education class. The binners were empowered as
experts, paid to share their expertise in recycling in a school setting, normally an environment from
which they are excluded. This also contributed to the destigmatisation of the binners in the eyes of
the children and school community, where direct contact with individual binners helped to broaden
the children’s understanding of the binner community, and their value in society.

For the audience, the performance challenged them to question their preconceived ideas about what
community engagement can achieve. The 300 or so audience members over two days were made up
of Festival participants, composers and performers from around the world, as well as friends and
family of the Band, who were all exposed to the fusion of ages, cultures and backgrounds in the Street
Beats Band. They witnessed the high standard of musical ability that is possible with community
engagement in the classical music world and opened up their minds to the possibilities of such Co-
Creative approaches. A number of audience members provided informal feedback on the achievement
of working at such a high level artistically, while also promoting a participatory approach. As one
audience member expressed: “It was one of the most the successful instances I’ve seen of combining
professional artists with community artists in a truly meaningful way […] the two halves were really
co-dependent and integrated” (interview, 14 February 2019).

The project also destabilised accepted thinking of what a musical instrument is, both for the audience
and the community participants, in relation to the materiality of the ‘found object’ instruments. As
the instigator Laura Barron commented:

‘It shifted paradigms a bit, in relation to their imagining what an instrument can be, and how
accessible music making can be, how it can be right at their fingertips, that they don’t need to go
to the Conservatory, they don’t need to buy an expensive instrument, that their voices and their
found instruments can make music.’ (Interview, 31 October 2018)

Individuals benefit from participating in art, because of its potential for learning, emancipation and
empowerment (Bacqué and Biewener, 2013). The SBB achieved these outcomes for the participants,

138
but the Co-Creation process goes beyond individual outcomes of community participation in art, to
co-create new knowledge about places or communities, which challenges previously held views. In
this case, although the binners were not as fully involved as anticipated, their association with the
project contributed to confront audience views about community-based art and what can be achieved
through community engagement in creative production. As an audience member noted: “Too often, I
find, the community element could be eliminated without necessarily having an impact on the final
presentation. But this wasn’t the case with that [the SBB] at all.”

These border situations unsettle audiences with new ways of seeing and understanding. The SBB drew
on the binners’ life experiences in border situations, blurring the boundaries between art and social
action. By performing the piece with community participants at an international music festival, the
process was also destabilising conventional views about who is ‘a musician’ and who has the right to
be labelled as ‘a musician’. In many ways, therefore, the SBB project can be seen as Co-Creation, as it
crossed borders, disrupted concepts and disciplines, and questioned existing thinking.

Confronting power differentials in Co-Creation

As Matarasso notes (2019: 107) ‘inequalities of power are created in the act of co-creation’. This arises
for a number of reasons. The first relates to the level of skill, knowledge, experience and confidence
of professional artists (musicians in this case), compared to non-professional community artists, which
inevitably places the community participants in an unequal position. The second reason is connected
to the power attached to the role of the instigator, who is the hub of the Co-Creation project,
connected to all components, ranging from the funding body through to the artists, community
participants and beyond. This gives them access to knowledge that underpins their authority in the
Co-Creation process. While it is important to have a strong instigator and leader in Co-Creation
projects, this concentration of knowledge also brings with it potentially significant command over
other participants, a situation which should be acknowledged and negotiated from the beginning and
throughout the Co-Creation exercise to integrate strategies for power sharing into the process.

In the case of the Street Beats Band, the instigator Laura Barron was conscious of her privileged role,
both as the leader of the project, as a professional musician, and as a facilitator. Community
participants acknowledged her grounded style, approachability and levelling manner, which
contributed to breaking down power hierarchies in the project. However, she did need to make
difficult decisions about whether to include certain participants from Year One in the Year Two
performance year, due to the mismatch between the skills of some participants and the technicalities
of the composed piece. It was felt that some participants would struggle to learn the complicated
rhythms that were needed to play the work to a performance level, and so they were passed over in
Year Two. She expressed her ‘deep regrets about having had to make the executive decision to exclude
some participants from Phase Two of the project. However, my motivations for making such difficult
decisions are always in the interest of what is best for the greater good’ (personal communication, 18
September 2019).

This raises issues that are frequently debated in relation to socially-engaged arts, that is, the relative
importance of the product artistically, versus the value of the process to the participants, such as the
importance of social relations and dialogical interactions. How important is the quality of the final

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artistic product, in this case the musical outcome, when the process taken to get there has the
potential for significant and long-lasting impacts on the community members involved? While in
general, Instruments of Change aims to valorise both the process and the final product equally, in this
case, due to the connection with the wider ISCM Festival and the newly-commissioned percussion
piece, the delivery of the final musical product at the ISCM Festival was given priority, although this
meant excluding certain Year One participants from continuing into Year Two. This tension between
the process and the product, between relational outcomes and object-based outcomes, is one that
many Co-Creative projects grapple with while trying to bypass binary thinking that positions artistic
outcomes against social ones. In each case, the aim is to achieve a balance that is most appropriate in
the particular context.

Power relations in a Co-Creation project are also complicated by the issue of who gets paid for their
participation and why. Payment to professional artists for their involvement is rarely questioned, but
payment to non-professional artists is less common, partly due to funding constraints. In the Street
Beats Band, the binners were paid for their time to collect materials and curate them as instruments.
They were paid as a way of demonstrating the value of their knowledge and know-how of the city, its
alleys and waste materials, in the context of a project that aims to destigmatise a marginalised group
in Vancouver society. The professional musicians from Music on Main were paid for their involvement
in the final performance, as were the instigator of the whole project, the composer, the facilitators
and the conductor. The community participants were seen as volunteers and were not paid. However,
if the community participants are recognised as musicians, equally implicated in the act of Co-
Creation, there are strong arguments from an ethical and power perspective for them to be paid as
well. And yet some would argue that financial remuneration is not necessarily the most appropriate
means of compensating community participants for their involvement, given the potential for
disempowerment and a sense of obligation if payment is made in exchange for participation. Others
argue that community members benefit from participation in non-monetary ways through personal
development, capacity building and other skills, so payment is neither necessary nor appropriate. In
the Street Beats Band, community members were provided with free food at every rehearsal and
refreshments in the Green Room at the two performances, in addition to the ‘free’ skills-building
education they received. These complexities around payment are often resolved by default through a
lack of available funds to remunerate all community participants, but they nevertheless raise
important questions about fairness and equality of treatment in a Co-Creation project, issues of
reciprocity, and the perceived value of different participants’ contributions.

Co-Creation aims to disrupt traditional thinking and challenge stereotypes, ultimately to bring about
societal change. But these are grand objectives, which are not necessarily achievable through small
scale projects. Many Co-Creation projects achieve significant impacts at individual and community
scales. In the Street Beats Band, individual impacts at the personal level were identified through
participants gaining skills, confidence and knowledge. At the community scale, the rehearsal groups
came together as a whole, shared ideas and resources, and developed trust through their communal
experience of practicing and performing together. However, wider social transformation is harder to
identify, not only because it is a long-term process and the project was a small scale intervention, but
also because of the difficulty of accomplishing such change, within a framework of structural
constraints that limit wider social transformation related to gender, class, race and post-colonialism.
The involvement of the binners in the broader project could have contributed to individual and
societal change, but the constraints of their difficult lives meant that they could not and/or did not

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participate more fully. This case therefore illustrates the potential of Co-Creation to build community
and to confront barriers and prejudice, but tempered with a realism of the power of structural
constraints that limit deep social change.

Conclusions

Co-Creation aims to be a creative and democratic process through which different voices come
together in a common artistic endeavour that brings participants into creative contact, and
contributes to their discovering, understanding and sharing experiences. The Street Beats Band
brought together the notion of Co-Creation with principles of ASC to empower participants and
challenge traditional views of community-engaged practice by marrying professional and non-
professional musicians in an international professional setting. Overall, the project adhered to ASC
principles, while also drawing on elements of Co-Creation as defined in this volume, by bringing
together different stakeholders to address issues of marginalisation, and emphasising community and
empowerment. Although researcher engagement and knowledge creation were not explicit aims of
the SBB, one of the outcomes was participants’ enhanced understanding of different perspectives and
world views of those who took part, particularly through the engagement of the binner community.
The project reached significant achievements in the final show at the ISCM New Music Festival, with
a high-level work performed mainly by community musicians, some with no formal musical training,
playing on repurposed object instruments that had been curated by binners. The binners’ connection
with the project helped to challenge the community participants’ views of the binner community,
although as the binners themselves did not perform at the final New Music Festival, the impact on the
audience’s perception of this marginalised community was more limited.

This case study illustrates that a Co-Creative process such as the Street Beats Band can build
community, as well as confront conventional thinking and challenge ideas and expectations.
Participants came together to collaborate and create music together, to make sense of and explore
their worlds. The Street Beats Band provided an arena for building voices, confidence, trust and space
for dialogue between different groups. But, as the chapter has illustrated, within the Co-Creation
process there are inevitable inequalities of power that risk creating dominant and subordinate
relations, when professional and non-professional artists collaborate, and when the necessary
‘instigator’ is required to initiate, lead and make decisions for the project. As Laura Barron
commented: ‘I am well aware of the limitations of this work, and recognise it as an incomplete vehicle
for social change’ (personal communication, 18 September 2019). Tensions and dilemmas embedded
in Co-Creation are unavoidable, due to different visions, interests, and inevitable power hierarchies.
These issues should be acknowledged, addressed and negotiated by those involved.

What this chapter has argued is that Co-Creative projects offer critical potential to catalyse individual
and collective impacts, with community participants benefiting in a myriad of ways from the creative
and collective process of artmaking. These benefits include participants’ feeling of achievement, a
sense of community and communal identity, and building cross-generational and cross-cultural
understanding. However, at the wider societal level, changes are necessarily more limited. While
impacts can be seen at the individual and community level, the power of Co-Creative or ASC projects
to address some of the deep-seated societal challenges is more limited. As ‘incomplete vehicles for
social change’, they cannot dismantle the structural forces that underpin inequalities, but they do

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have the capacity to impact on the people who can trouble those structural forces, to question
inequalities related to gender, class, race and post-colonialism, and challenge societal inequities
through the process of Co-Creation.

Funding acknowledgement: This chapter was written with support from the European Union’s Horizon
2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no
749154 (SURGE: Social Sustainability and Urban Regeneration Governance: An International
Perspective).

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Belfiore, E., (2002) ‘Art as a means of alleviating social exclusion: Does it really work? A critique of
instrumental cultural policies and social impact studies in the UK’, International Journal of Cultural
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Bishop, C. (ed) (2006) ‘Participation’, in I. Blazwich (ed) Documents of Contemporary Art, London:
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Campbell, T. (2017) Instruments of Change: Community Sounds in Contemporary Classical New Music,
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Cities’, Paper presented at the Urban Affairs Association Annual Congress, Toronto, 6 April 2018.

Haviland, M. (2017) Side by Side? Community Art and the Challenge of Co-Creativity, Abingdon:
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Marcuse, J. and Marcuse, R. (2011) ‘Art for Social Change: a call for partnership’, in C. McLean and R.
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[Accessed 18 September 2019].

Matarasso, F. (2019) A Restless Art: How Participation Won, and Why It Matters, Calouste Gulbenkian
Foundation, UK Branch.

Pahl, K., Escott, H., Graham, H., Marwood, K., Pool, S. and Ravetz, A. (2017) ‘What is the role of the
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TWELVE

Co-Creation and social transformation: A tough issue for research

Jim Segers

Introduction

This chapter discusses the role of research institutions and researchers in social transformation in an
urban context. From the perspective of City Mine(d), an initiator of social change processes, it looks
at the ambitions of academic research methodologies like Co-Creation to generate knowledge
together with communities and stakeholders.
The first section outlines the argument. Section two describes the evolution many citizen and
community organisations have made from protest to proposal. The third section focuses on a practical
approach to social transformation inspired by the work of Vermaak (2012) and Orlikowski (1996).
Section four is dedicated to the specific tactics for social change developed by City Mine(d). The last
section deals with the at times ambiguous role of research institutions and researchers, as observer-
scientist versus agent-activist, or producers of knowledge versus initiators of change, in social
transformation. A conclusion revisits the main ideas of this chapter.

The argument

In September 2019, the department of Political Sciences of UNAM (National Autonomous University
of Mexico) organised a Co-Creation Seminar in Mexico City. During the session titled ‘Citizen
participation and socio-political dynamics’, it was argued that grassroots organisations and citizen
initiatives are increasingly shifting ‘from protest to proposal’, no longer aiming to block developments,
but formulating alternatives, analysing what is at stake and coming up with better ways of meeting
needs. The shift from opposing to proposing has brought grassroots organisations closer to more
institutional actors like governments, businesses and industry, civil society organisations, and also
research institutions. This raises an interesting question: are institutionalised or informal partners
better positioned to initiate social transformation?

The ‘rapprochement’ of these actors has blurred the traditional boundaries between social
transformation and social research. Campbell and Vanderhoven (2016) refer to the public benefit of
co-producing research, and this volume describes Co-Creation as a methodology for generating
creative outputs and knowledge that are relevant to the local community. While this is welcomed by
all involved, one should be careful not to confuse social research as a scientific practice with social
transformation. Social transformation in this chapter refers to the practice of bringing about change
in issues that cannot be solved in a traditional manner. Following Vermaak (2012), we refer to these
as ‘tough issues’. These issues are multi-factor – knowledge we have about them is incomplete or even
contradictory and interconnected, multi-actor – many stakeholders and agencies are involved, and
multi-scalar – they often play at local as well as global levels.

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City Mine(d) tends to involve five groups of stakeholders. They are the government; businesses; civil
society (NGOs that have a relationship with the state); citizens and grassroots organisations; and
research institutions. None of these stakeholders has the legitimacy to start a process dealing with
tough issues, as each one can be considered suspect by all others: government for consolidating
power, business for the profit motive, civil society as an extension of the status quo and citizens for
being occupied only by expressing grievances.

Researchers and research institutions are not considered independent either. On the one hand, a
research agenda is deeply embedded in an institutional framework that comes with framing and with
an agenda different from the (tough) issue in question. More importantly, academia has a status and
adhered power that distorts horizontal or egalitarian decision-making. In response to this and
referring to the work of Simmel (1950), City Mine(d) defends a position of ‘third actor’, or in Simmel’s
words ‘tertius gaudens’. While Simmel limits himself to three-actor relationships, the broker roles he
describes can also be identified in larger networks: the ‘mediator’ is an equal to or stands above the
others; ‘divide and rule’ is someone who creates conflict to gain a dominant position; the ‘tertius
gaudens’ on the other hand acts as a gateway between different actors and derives resources (or in
case of City Mine(d), case stakeholder commitment), from occupying this pivotal position. City Mine(d)
proposes to produce a creative answer to a small part of the ’tough issue’ at hand. In doing so, it is
considered insignificant but also not a threat by the stakeholders. The organisation has no resources
to contribute, yet can be considered a potential ally by every other stakeholder. Because it is
powerless, it is considered harmless. In addition, City Mine(d) often refrains from promoting a brand
image and for each tough issue creates a new identity.

In the light of these remarks about power hierarchies within collaborative projects, in the following
pages I will illustrate the shift from protest to proposal as it was experienced in the course of a project
in Barcelona initiated by City Mine(d). I will then attempt to set out a perspective on social
transformation through the lens of tough issues. Next, the approach of prototyping and its tactic of
tertius gaudens will be described, and finally some thoughts will be expressed about the relationship
between initiatives like City Mine(d) and research and academia in general, and with a methodology
like Co-Creation in particular.

From protest to proposal

City Mine(d) es proposa recuperar aquest espai com una cuina urbana
emergent oberta a tot tipus d’iniciatives
que retornin l’espai públic als habitants de la ciutat.
Quaderns de architectura i urbanisme (2006)

City Mine(d) intends to recover this space as an urban kitchen

emerging open to all kinds of initiatives
to return the public space to the inhabitants of the city [author’s translation].

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City Mine(d) is a design practice that was set up in Brussels in 1997. Over the years it has assumed
many guises, from ‘production house for art interventions in public space’ via ‘economic development
agency’ to ’neighbourhood activists in some twenty neighbourhoods throughout Europe’. Yet, there
are two recurrent themes: on the one hand there is ‘the making of things’: creation of artefacts that
serve their own ends, also serving as an opportunity to bring disparate – at times even adversarial –
parties together. On the other hand, a second, connected, theme has to do with the just and cohesive
city. While not well placed to directly increase the socioeconomic well-being or political emancipation
of citizens, City Mine(d) does aim to improve the lives of people. Inspired by the work of Nussbaum
(1999), among others, City Mine(d) has become convinced of the view expressed by Nussbaum that
‘choice matters. You might have the opportunity to eat a nutritious diet, though you might choose to
eat a lousy diet. What matters is the opportunity’ (quoted in Adams, 2017).

This ‘equal worth of persons as choosers’ (Nussbaum, 1999: 57) which asks ‘what are the individuals
of the group or country able to do and be’ (1999: 34) seems dialectically opposed to the need for
communities to self-organise in order to overcome barriers to development (see Ostrom, 1990).
However, it is precisely this tension between individual liberty and ‘the collective power needed to
reshape the processes of urbanisation’ (Harvey 2008: 23) that fuels the work of City Mine(d). And not
just City Mine(d). Research methodologies such as Co-Creation, which aim to combine artistic
expression (often a very individualistic endeavour) with community interests, will at some point
unavoidably have to deal with it.

As with other similar practices that emerged in the late 1990s, City Mine(d) has a background in
environmental, peace and movements in support of the Global South, with roots in direct action.
Many of these groups were informed by the 1960s civil rights movements and the anti-nuclear
movement of the 1980s, with practices that used non-violent strategies like sit-ins, occupations of
buildings or mass demonstrations. More interestingly, these practices used governance principles that
are still relevant: horizontal decision-making, anti-authoritarianism and self-organisation. Even a
research methodology like Co-Creation can aspire to these principles. We will deal with the extent to
which this is possible from within academia later in this chapter.

From its inception, City Mine(d) focussed on the city as its locus operandi as well as subject of its work.
The reasons for action were struggles of social justice manifest through a lack of green and public
space, loss of affordable housing, gender imbalance, urban transport and mobility. In more general
terms it resisted the top-down development of cities in which planning was left to engineers who
organise space and other resources in the most efficient way. According to Healey (1997: 5), the
planning system was designed assuming ‘that the state could “take charge” and “control” spatial
organisation and the location of development. (…) Whereas the economic planning tradition has been
dominated by economists and political philosophers, the arena of physical development planning was
shaped for many years by engineers and architects, and by utopian images of what cities could be
like.’

However, the regeneration of post-industrial areas required financial resources no longer available to
public authorities. In light of the macro-economic difficulties of the 1970s and 1980s, governments
cut back expenditure programmes and relied more heavily on private initiatives. Moulaert (2005) in
Singocom, concluded ‘The current policy shifts occurring, at all government scales, towards narrowly

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defined economic and efficiency criteria, a reliance on real estate development for urban
regeneration, the privatisation or externalisation of service provision, a re-conquest of public spaces
by either private businesses or technocratic local governments are increasingly pushing civil society
“change agents” out of the social scene.’ In the introduction to City Mine(d)’s “Bruxel” Conference,
Swyngedouw (2003) warned that the consequences of market-led urban development would be
‘mechanisms of exclusion, social polarisation and diminishing citizenship.’ A decade later, European
cities are still, unsuccessfully, trying to reconcile claims of social justice and redistribution with
dependence on market and private investment.

A shift can now be noticed in the relationship between the powers-that-be and those, like City
Mine(d), who try to change cities for the better. Here we make a distinction between ‘tactic’ and
‘strategy’. We use ‘Tactic’ in the sense defined by Michel de Certeau in L’Invention du Quotidien (1980)
as opposed to ’strategy’. ‘Strategy’ is the realm of the powerful, who plan cities and are able to impose
a vision, while in de Certeau’s reading, ‘tactic’ is an adaptation of the powerless to the context
provided by the strategy of the powerful. He refers to it both as ‘résistance’ and as ‘bricolage’. It is
precisely between these two terms that the shift is taking place: where the urban struggles mentioned
above were initially mainly forms of resistance against development, we agree with the participants
of the UNAM Seminar that practitioners are trying to change developments by proposing alternatives.
In this sense ‘bricolage’ in its meaning of ‘do-it-yourself’ describes a non-professional, do-it-yourself
way of urban planning and policy making. This happens in regeneration schemes, but also in urban
governance and even the management of urban natural resources. We will illustrate the shift here
from ‘résistance’ to ‘bricolage’ with a process City Mine(d) initiated in Barcelona in 2004, and which
itself moved from opposing the development plan of the metropolitan government to ‘bricoler’ a
veritable alternative for a specific site.

In the year 2000, Barcelona’s metropolitan government accepted the 22@ plan, an urban
regeneration scheme aimed at transforming the industrial area of Poblenou into the technology and
innovation neighbourhood of the city, while at the same time increasing space for housing and leisure.
French architect Jean Nouvel was asked to transform a five-hectare piece of land into a ‘Central Park’.
Right after the scheme was adopted the metropolitan government started expropriating houses on
site with the last ones demolished in 2003.

A year later the site was still vacant. Users of the factory building and local residents took matters into
their own hands and started to build their own park. Initially, the factory walls were painted. Then, on
29 May 2004 action ‘ParcCentralPark’ followed. About 40 local residents – users of Can Ricart and
sympathisers, armed with brooms and spades – started cleaning up the site. Its strategic importance
manifested itself immediately in a peculiar way: in no time about one hundred members of the
Spanish riot police in full gear removed the cleaners from the site. Once cleared, the site was
surrounded and secured by the Guardia Civil as a forbidden zone. When the ‘active’ citizens focussed
their attention and spades on an adjacent plot barely a thousand square metres large, that also was
stopped manu militari. The siesta respected by Guardia Civil as well as Spanish citizens brought the
stalemate to an end.

The public demonstration meant that local grievances reached the metropolitan government as well
as Nouvel’s practice. Residents’ associations were consulted, a local artist’s work was integrated into

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the design of the park, and a historic chimney on site was kept and restored as a reminder of the
neighbourhood’s glorious past. The decision-making process about the full five hectares, however,
remained off limits for residents.

Meanwhile, the old factory complex still housed about 60 SMEs, collectives and arts centres which
together employed 240 people. Among them was Can Font, a space shared among others by City
Mine(d). When, in September 2004, the metropolitan government informed users of the imminent
demolition of the complex, the platform ‘Salvem Can Ricart’ (Save Can Ricart) was founded. It initiated
campaigns such as ‘Made in Can Ricart’ to promote products made on site. By April 2005, the platform
developed a dossier in defence of the site: ‘Can Ricart – Parc Central Nou Projecte’ (Universidad de
Barcelona, 2005). In it, its heritage value was emphasised – one of the last three remaining 19th
century industrial complexes in Barcelona, its urbanistic importance was explained – a publicly
accessible site on which industry and experiment co-existed, and a critique of the 22@ scheme was
articulated – the plan interpreted innovation too narrowly, leaving only room for technology. More
importantly, the dossier contained an alternative proposal made by the citizen platform that
combined existing qualities with ambitions from within 22@. In January 2006, the metropolitan
government decided to preserve half of the industrial complex and to adjust the plans according to
users’ needs.

Tough issues

One learns about tough issues by addressing them, not by thinking about them beforehand.
The latter leads to a ‘paralysis by analysis,’ where people cannot take action until they have
more information, but they cannot get good information until someone takes action. Thus, a
process of ‘small wins’ makes more sense: micro-level changes that actors enact as they make
sense of and act in the world.
Wanda Orlikowski (1996) as quoted in Vermaak (2012: 226)

The earlier mentioned lack of green and public space, loss of affordable housing, gender imbalance,
decolonisation, urban transport and mobility are instances of ‘tough issues’ (Vermaak, 2012) or
‘wicked problems’ (Rittel and Webber, 1973). Policy issues grouped under this label are deemed
‘tough’ because they are complex in their subject matter (multi-factor), in order to be addressed they
need the collaboration of many stakeholders (multi-actor) and they touch upon different levels of
policy- and decision-making (multi-scalar). Rittel and Webber (1973) juxtapose ‘wicked problems’ with
‘tame problems’ like playing chess or solving a puzzle. The latter have a clear solution and an endpoint,
whereas wicked problems lack a clear formulation of the problem, have no right or wrong solution
and each one is unique (see also Conklin, 2006). This also means that ‘tough issues’ escape the
prevailing logic that all issues can be solved by algorithms. They show us the edges of today’s dominant
notion that all problems can be reduced to a mathematical formula which with the right input of data
then solves itself.

The problem of urban transport and mobility provides an interesting example of a tough issue. In a
study on Munich and Birmingham, Hendriks (1994) identified three cultural positions towards the
dilemma of more roads versus fewer cars. There are those that value individual freedom most and

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who put their trust upon the environment recovering; a second group counts on keeping matters
orderly with a structured framework, and relies on determining the boundaries of environmental
resilience and taking action before chaos erupts; and a third group values equal access, sustainability
and liveability and for them the environment is always on the edge of collapse. In a single city these
three visions compete for power to shape the built environment and to decide and implement
regulation. Often, this takes place in a system of governance in which the municipal vies for the final
word with regional, national and even transnational institutions, in addition to government and
private sector interests. As such, urban transport and mobility is a clear example of a ‘tough issue’.
There is only one physical space, and the visions are incompatible.

In City Mine(d)’s approach to social transformation, ‘tough issues’ form the subject and cause of
collaboration. Urban populations and their governments are confronted with a plethora of ‘tough
issues’ and deal with them with a limited degree of success. Rittel and Webber’s (1973: 156) remark
‘now that the relatively easy problems have been dealt with, we have been turning our attention to
others that are much more stubborn,’ is true when it comes to stubbornness. Solutions to ‘tough
issues’ are still outsourced away from democracy to experts, task forces or think tanks, excluding
citizens from the thought process and making citizens reluctant to accept, let alone adopt, the remedy
(Vermaak 2012). ‘Tough issues’ demand an approach in which all who have a stake – for once, the
jargon is spot on in calling them ‘stakeholders’– take part in understanding the problem and designing
a solution. As Orlikowski (1996) suggests above, it takes an agent to take a first step in order to gain
information to move on to the next step. This practical way of working is what inspired City Mine(d)
in an approach it now refers to as ‘prototyping’.

The prototyping third

Often the relation between the parties and the non-partisan emerges as a new relationship:
elements that have never before formed an interactional unit may come into conflict; a third
non-partisan element, which before was equally unconnected with either, may spontaneously
seize upon the chances that this quarrel gives him; and thus an entirely unstable interaction
may result which can have an animation and wealth of forms, for each of the elements
engaged in it, which are out of all proportion to its brief life.
Georg Simmel (1950: 154)

The prototyping approach was inspired by Suchmann et al (2002): ‘the prototype, an exploratory
technology designed to effect alignment between the multiple interests and working practices of
technology research and development, and sites of technology-in-use.’

The exploratory character of prototyping is important, as it goes beyond the comfort zone of engineers
and specialists. It goes into uncharted territory, where it touches upon different interests. Yet, it is
more ambitious than community arts projects, as it aspires to be relevant within its tough issue, and
function at the same time. It is a working model, rather than an expression of (community or
individual) sentiments or grievances. In addition, it avoids the issue of ‘instrumentalisation of art’
which according to some critics, leads to a lower form of artistic expression.

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In their article ‘The role of the Tertius as initiator of urban collective action,’ exploring the role of City
Mine(d), Moyersoen and Swyngedouw (2005: 309) write:

Initially, the initiators, […] had no reputation, no financial means and very limited power to
start, let alone impose, an urban renewal process. […] [They] adopt the role of Tertius.
(Simmel, 1955). The ‘tertius‘ role is the intermediary role between groups in situations of
friction resulting from open competition and/or from a state of non-communication between
rival groups. From this perspective, the core-group exploited the ‘vacant‘ institutional and
socio-political space between the diverse and non-communicating local community. (See also
quote by Simmel above.)

The question for research methods like Co-Creation becomes: to what extent is a research institution
a third, non-partisan element? Is scientific research an end in itself, and would, therefore, a
community feel instrumentalised by contributing to research; or can the research truly coincide with
the needs and aspirations of a community, even if it has to abide by the laws of academia?

While the development of a prototype serves a purpose in itself, namely that of technological
exploration and innovation, it also serves a secondary purpose, namely that of providing the different
stakeholders in a ’tough issue’ with the opportunity to come together in a non-rival context. Suchmann
et al (2002) refer to it as ‘alignment’, City Mine(d) calls it the ‘creation of a coalition’. The coalition’s
main reason for being is to build the best possible prototype, but while working on it, different
stakeholders meet in an informal context and have the opportunity to get to know each other’s
perspective on the tough issue. As we mentioned before, the knowledge about tough issues is always
incomplete, contradictory and interconnected, so it makes a lot of sense hearing other stakeholders’
perspectives.

City Mine(d) tends to look for five groups of stakeholders. The starting point is citizens and
communities, often at the scale of a small neighbourhood. It distinguishes citizens from civil society in
a Gramscian way, in the sense that civil society (in its meaning of non-governmental organisations and
institutions that manifest interests and will of citizens) has an intimate relationship with the state. As
Gramsci notes (1971: 263): ‘The general notion of State includes elements […] of civil society (in the
sense that one might say that State = political society + civil society, in other words hegemony
protected by the armour of coercion).’ The government in itself, at the different levels on which the
tough issue is at play, is obviously also a stakeholder. The shift from government to governance, aptly
described by Swyngedouw (2004), makes the relevant business actors indispensable in a coalition. The
fifth actor is research institutions. They are invited for their contribution of basic as well as applied
research, but also from the notion that research influences policy. In that sense it is an indirect way to
shape society. Yet, their role is not entirely unproblematic. Whereas government and industry are
aware of being ‘hegemonic actors’, research and civil society institutions are often less so. The next
example will explore this further.

A coalition on electricity that is developing at the time of writing can provide an insight into the first
stages of this process. An article published in The Guardian in December 2016 (Magnin, 2016) quotes
a study showing that by 2050 half of the European population could be producing their own electricity
‘either at home, as part of a cooperative, or in their small business.’ The electricity sector is on the

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verge of a major shift. Factors such as increasing electrification, growing awareness of the
environmental impact of energy consumption and a retreat of the state that makes the sector
predominantly profit-driven are bringing about a transformation comparable only to the creation of
the national grid a century ago. In this shift, City Mine(d) sees an opportunity to approach the
mountain of climate change from a less steep flank. In other words, climate change increasingly
pitches believers against non-believers, to the point where the subject becomes so vast that it ends
up being incapacitating. Yet, within this broad field of a sustainable environment, City Mine(d) is
looking for opportunities, rather than engaging with the threats, the opportunity here being the
shifting electricity landscape that provides a chance to tilt the playing field in favour of citizens and
cooperatives. The location is Brussels’ Quartier Midi, one of Europe’s most densely populated areas
and with a notoriously stubborn deprivation index (including energy poverty).

From May 2018, experts from industry, research, media, government and civil society were
interviewed about their perspective on the changing sector. After the interviews, the interviewees
were brought together in a meeting in the Quartier Midi. To take out the differences in status or
posture, participants agreed to a first-name basis meeting. Meanwhile, a local group had been formed,
and a name had been chosen for the project: La Pile (The Battery). Thirty-five stories of local residents
of the Quartier Midi and their relationship with electricity were collected and contributed to an overall
perspective on the sector. Next, the vast amount of information gathered from interviews, meetings
and collected stories was made digestible in three ways. One was a roadmap entitled ‘How to face up
to the cost of electricity’ with tips and tricks and useful contacts. The second way was an exhibition
that aimed to inspire the general public, but particularly those involved in the prototyping stage in
Brussels’ Quartier Midi. The La Pile Expo was launched in Brussels’ prestigious arts centre Bozar before
it moved to the Quartier Midi and then travelled across Belgium and abroad. The third way of sharing
information was a board game called ‘Exploration Game’. Playing the game gives players an
opportunity to familiarise themselves with what local electricity production involves (and its limits)
yet at the same time through the role playing gain a better understanding of the interests different
stakeholders have to take on board.

The truth is out there

¿Qué es la razón? La razón es aquello en que estamos todos de acuerdo, todos o por lo menos
la mayoría. La verdad es otra cosa, la razón es social; la verdad, de ordinario, es
completamente individual, personal e incomunicable. La razón nos une y las verdades nos
separan.
Miguel de Unamuno (1927: 9)

What is Reason? Reason is what we all agree upon, all or at least the majority. Truth is
something else, reason is social; truth, ordinarily, is completely individual, personal and
incommunicable. Reason unites us and truths separate us. [author’s translation]

One of those interviewed as part of La Pile was Ilse Tant, chief officer of Community Operations at
Elia, Belgium’s electricity transmission operator. Her role is to mediate between the company
responsible for installing high voltage cables across the country, and communities that have to live

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with the cables. In her view, the difficulty is to convince engineers from her company that they have
only part of the picture, and that local communities also hold an important part of the truth. Her
experience sounds true for many experts. The curse of knowledge, a term coined by Camerer,
Loewenstein and Weber (1989), is easily described as the inability to unknow what we know. This is
problematic in a coalition, as the asymmetry of information puts members of the research community
always at an advantage. They have access to the latest information and it takes a very conscious
researcher to overcome this bias. Gladwin (1989: 13) provides us with an interesting thought on social
sciences in particular:

[Like other] models in the social sciences, [decision tree models] are simplified pictures of a
part of the real world, like model trains. They are simpler than the phenomena they are
supposed to explain or represent, just as a model train has some characteristics of a real train
but not all (e.g., its size). (Gladwin, 1989: 13)

The main concern is, however, a political one. As mentioned before, research institutions are
hegemonic actors, which excludes them from roles like community actors or grassroots activists. Illich
(1971: 26) warns us that universities ‘have a monopoly of both the resources for learning and the
investiture of social roles. [They] co-opt the discoverer and the potential dissenter.’ This is important
for the stakeholders City Mine(d) brings together in a coalition, but also for research methodologies
like Co-Creation. Research institutions can be key actors and stakeholders in a social transformation
process, it is very hard for them to be the initiator. The question of whether researchers can dissociate
themselves from the research institution, to what extent, and what new role in addition to citizen that
would confer on them, remains to be dealt with, preferably by researchers themselves.

Yet, Co-Creation can become a valuable tool for studying social change in a more inclusive way. In an
interview on the topic of Co-Creation in science, Xavier Hulhoven, scientific advisor to the Brussels
Regional Institute for Scientific Innovation Innoviris, talked about two participatory schools within
scientific research: there is, on the one hand, participatory action research, which is very much toolkit-
and methodology-oriented; and on the other hand there is a school of Co-Creation:

‘more based on principles, which tell a story of a community, of how people are taken into account,
and how the freedom to experiment and to take risks is guaranteed. And to make sure the values of
scientific research are respected, be they a slow pace (‘la lenteur’), reflection, nuance, possibility to
experiment and consequently to fail, contradiction.’
(Hulhoven et al, 2019)

He admits that these values are meaningful beyond the realm of scientific research. His colleague
Thomas Vangeebergen adds values such as questioning (‘remise en question’), doubt, even creating
some discomfort or confusion which conjures up a series of questions.

This is politically important. For everyone’s comfort, we are forced to eliminate all forms of
risk, we need to eliminate all uncertainties, we need to eliminate questioning. (Co-creation) is
not about win-win alliances, in which each can find his or her thing; it is rather about
embarking on a journey of shared exploration with all the risk-taking that entails. (Hulhoven
et al, 2019)

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Clearly, these are the values that inspire both the Co-Creation methodology described in this volume,
as well as City Mine(d).

Loftus (2003: 39), describing the work of City Mine(d), wrote:

to use the now hackneyed aphorism of Antonio Gramsci, the projects show a true optimism
of the will in the face of a pessimism of the intellect. As several authors have suggested
however, it is conceptually lazy to fall back on Gramsci’s maxim without also changing our
own praxis (see Harvey 2000). What is needed is a renewed optimism of the intellect, or better
still a renewed synergy between theory and practice. (Loftus, 2003: 39)

Conclusion

This chapter builds on the observation that many grassroots and citizen initiatives are shifting away
from blocking developments towards proposing alternatives. It borrows from the vocabulary of Michel
de Certeau (1980) to describe a shift from ‘résistance’ to ‘bricolage’. The Barcelona case illustrates
how this shift can occur within a project of merely five years. The chapter also considers an important
tension between the individualistic capabilities approach as described by Nussbaum (1999) and the
need for collective action which emerges from the work of Ostrom (1990). This seeming contradiction
can often be found at the core of social transformation. In issues of climate change, urban transport
and mobility or economic redistribution, the individual needs and entitlements often collide with a
collective and long-term view.

In this chapter we have drawn on a reading of social transformation that is based on the notion of
‘tough issues’. Defined by Vermaak (2012) as multi-factor, multi-actor and multi-scalar, ‘tough issues’
are a performative way of stating the challenges society is faced with. The issue can be unpacked in
smaller, more practical challenges, and small wins allow for progress even in over-complex matters
such as climate change. Informed by the notion of ‘tough issues’ City Mine(d) has developed a tactic
for social transformation it refers to as ‘prototyping’. ‘Prototyping’ is what gives City Mine(d) its role
of third actor (Simmel 1950). Prototyping brings together a group of five stakeholders, which are, in
addition to citizens, civil society organisations, business actors, governments and research institutions.
Particularly the latter have an ambiguous relationship with social transformation. The chapter
identifies two reasons: on the one hand they suffer from the curse of knowledge, yet on the other,
they are also, willingly or not, imbued with power. This makes it harder for them to initiate processes
of social transformation. Yet the chapter concludes by noticing that initiatives like City Mine(d) and
research methodologies like Co-Creation have many values in common: a slow pace, reflection,
nuance, the possibility to experiment and consequently to fail, contradiction. To name but a few.

City Mine(d) emphasises its role as ‘tertius gaudens’ because this is a position none of the five other
stakeholders can achieve. Urban lives are very much shaped by structures that impose power and a
form of coercion upon citizens. These are not solely the state or market related actors. As a matter of
fact, the distinction between the five stakeholders comes from the fact that each of them has a
different degree of power, while at the same time has to live with a different set of constraints. The

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five are chosen because they cover a very wide spectrum of power that shape cities. Compared to
these five actors, City Mine(d) –in that sense also any arts organisations – wields no power, but at the
same time suffers little constraints.

The perspective of ‘tough issues’ can prove valuable to all sorts of actors aspiring for social
transformation. As mentioned before, it makes the challenges communities and even societies are
faced with more practical and allows for progress in the right direction without actually solving the
issue immediately. In research methodologies like Co-Creation, ‘tough issues’ can prove a meaningful
way to identify the overlap between the research agenda and community concerns. The prototyping
approach City Mine(d) proposes is but one way of making small wins and progressing towards dealing
with the true issue. Others, including research or arts related approaches, could prove at least as
valuable.

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References

Adams, W. (2017), ‘Martha C. Nussbaum Talks About the Humanities, Mythmaking, and International
Development’ Humanities, 38(2) [online]
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humanities-mythmaking-and-international-development [Accessed 30 July 2019].

Camerer, C., Loewenstein G. and Weber, M. (1989) ‘The Curse of Knowledge in Economic Settings: An
Experimental Analysis’, Journal of Political Economy, 97(5): 12–1253.

Campbell, H. and Vanderhoven, D. (2016) Knowledge That Matters: Realising the Potential of Co-
Production, Manchester, N8 Research Partnership.

Conklin, J. (2006) Dialogue mapping: building shared understanding of wicked problems, Chichester:
Wiley Publishing.

de Certeau, M. (1980) L’Invention du Quotidien, Paris, Union Générale d’Editions.

de Unamuno, M. (1927) Como se hace una novela, Buenos Aires, Alba.

Gladwin, C. (1989) Ethnographic Decision Tree Modeling Sage University Paper Series on Qualitative
Research methods Vol. 19, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks, New York: International Publishers.

Harvey, D. (2000) Spaces of Hope, Baltimore: Edinburgh University Press

Harvey, D. (2008) ‘The right to the city’, New Left Review, II (53): 23–40.

Healey, P. (1997) Collaborative planning. Shaping places in Fragmented Societies, London: Macmillan
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Hendriks, F. (1994) ‘Cars and culture in Munich and Birmingham: the case for cultural pluralism’ in D.J.
Coyle and R.J. Ellis (eds) Politics, Policy and Culture, Boulder, Colorado: Westview.

Hulhoven, X. and Vangeebergen, T. (2019) Interview with the author, 18 July 2019.

Illich, I. (1971) Deschooling Society, New York, Harper & Row.

Loftus A. (2003) ‘Democratic interventions in the urbanisation of nature’ in J. Moyersoen and J. Segers
(eds) Generalised Empowerment:uneven development and urban interventions, Brussels: City Mine(d),
pp 28–39.

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Magnin, G. (2016) ‘Let the people lighten energy load with citizen‐owned schemes’, The Guardian, 29
November https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/29/let‐people‐lighten‐load‐citizen‐
owned‐energy‐schemes?CMP=share_btn_tw [Accessed 30 July 2019].

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Moyersoen, J. and Swyngedouw, E. (2005) ‘The role of the Tertius as initiator of urban collective action.
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Nussbaum, M. (1999) Sex and social justice, Oxford, University Press.

Ostrom, E. (1990) Governing the commons, Cambridge, University Press.

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Swyngedouw, E. (2003) Cities, Urbanity and Urban Interventions, Background to the Bruxel-conference,
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beyond‐the‐State’, Urban Studies, 2004(42): 1–16.

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Applied Behavioral Science, 48(1): 225–47.

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THIRTEEN

We Can… Co-Creating knowledge and products with local communities, for positive social change

Martha King, Melissa Mean and Roz Stewart-Hall

Introduction

This chapter explores the role that Co-Creation plays in the work happening at Knowle West Media
Centre (KWMC), Bristol, UK, through the lens of two case study projects; The Bristol Approach, which
is about addressing digital exclusion and tackling inequalities and We Can Make, which is about Co-
Creating new approaches to housing. Both projects help to demonstrate how KWMC has been
working, since 1996, in ways that start with people and bring together arts, artists, other expertise,
digital tools and data to explore and address people’s concerns and priorities through Co-Created
creative interventions.

For KWMC, Co-Creation is understood to be ‘a cooperative process whereby people with common
interests, often with diverse skills and experiences, work together non-hierarchically towards a
change they want to bring about’. A key aspect that allows this ‘non-hierarchical’ practice to
function is the collaborative definition of an overarching common goal around which people from
different backgrounds (both in terms of socioeconomics, cultures and disciplinary specialisms) can
cluster and focus energy. At the start of every project, it is essential to give time to defining and Co-
Creating a shared mission of change. With a clear headline intent, participants can then voluntarily
contribute as little or as much as is appropriate and could be involved in only one small aspect
knowing that their participation is still moving towards the overall mission. To enable this process to
work everyone has to have a willingness to contribute to the overall shared goal as well as agency to
participate and contribute in different ways. Facilitators of Co-Creation play a key role in ensuring a
process of ‘non-hierarchical’ Co-Creation is possible. Rather than denying different knowledge and
expertise, KWMC facilitators apply processes where all skills are valued and acknowledged, ground
rules are established early on and in turn safe spaces that flatten hierarchical power dynamics are
created. Artists are often employed as facilitators using tactics such as ‘play’ to cross boundaries,
remove fear and create spaces where change on both a community and individual level can happen.

It can be argued that the transformative potential of engagement in the arts has sometimes led to
an unhelpful set of assumptions about who or what it is that is in need of transformation. François
Matarasso has written about this, clearly articulating some of the issues there are with pervasive
notions of ‘impact’:

In this thinking, the social art project is conceived as an experience whose ‘impact’ changes
those who take part. And in this context, ‘change’ means ‘improve’, in terms of the problem-
solving mission identified, more or less cooperatively, by the artist and the commissioner.
(Matarasso, 2015: 5)

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Matarasso uncovers a set of problematic assumptions, which underpin this way of thinking; that
some people are “in need of improvement.” At KWMC, there is no such assumption about who or
what is in need of improvement. Instead, a process of Co-Creation is used to identify the broad and
diverse changes that need to take place in order to make radical, long term positive differences. Co-
Creation, in practice, demands a recognition that change may need to happen in many places,
spaces and people, including within the organisations or for the individuals involved in a process,
such as at a gallery or for a researcher, or at organisations and with individuals that are not directly
involved, such as councils or policy makers. The sites for change are only identifiable through the Co-
Creation process and reflection on the exchange and learning that takes place through such a
process. In such a context the notion of ‘impact’ is usefully unsettled in terms of who has impact
upon whom, and it is less predictable than the everyday use of the term often implies.

Through this chapter, we will explore some of the challenges, possibilities and limitations of Co-
Creation, suggesting that positive social change can be enabled by Co-Creation processes that:

 Start with people and their interests

 Work towards a shared goal
 Use creative approaches and arts practice to work across disciplines and power structures
 Create space for re-imagining
 Democratise and de-mystify the tools and means of production.

We will discuss some of the challenges around incentivising and enabling people from different
socio-economic backgrounds and positions of power to participate in Co-Creation projects. We will
also demonstrate how artists and arts-led creative approaches can allow diverse contributions
towards common Co-Creation goals. Before doing so, through two case study examples, we will
provide some context about Knowle West and KWMC.

Context

KWMC is an arts organisation and charity based in Knowle West, south Bristol, an area of
approximately 5,500 households that roughly corresponds to the electoral ward of Filwood. It ranks
highly in government indices of deprivation, with 35% of people experiencing income deprivation in
some parts of the area, which is ranked in the 100 most deprived areas in England (Bristol City
Council, 2015).

KWMC offers a wide range of activities for people of all ages, including skills training and
employment opportunities for young people, a programme of regular talks and exhibitions, and
creative projects working with local residents to explore issues ranging from health to housing. As
the Bristol Living Lab (part of the European Network of Living Labs), KWMC brings together people
from different backgrounds to explore and test creative solutions to the challenges that affect them
in a ‘real world’ setting.

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KWMC also runs The Factory, an award-winning making and training space, based at Filwood Green
Business Park. The Factory, established in 2015, provides access to new digital manufacturing
technologies (such as CNC routers and 3D printers), offers product design and prototyping services
for clients, and delivers a range of free training courses.

From its beginnings in a 1996 photography project run by KWMC Director Carolyn Hassan, the
organisation and its ethos were forged at a ‘grassroots’ level, with Knowle West residents and young
people involved from the outset. KWMC was formally constituted as a charity in 2002 and in 2007 a
group of young people helped to develop designs for an innovative environmental building to house
KWMC’s expanding staff team and portfolio of projects.

When it opened in 2008, KWMC’s new building was the largest straw-bale construction in the South
West. In 2014, on the ten-year anniversary of her involvement with KWMC, one young woman
involved in the building project tweeted: ‘it's a big part of my life and helped carve my future’.

KWMC now works across generations and communities in Bristol, as well as with enterprises,
universities, local governments and networks across the UK and the world. Knowle West remains at
the heart of KWMC’s work and it is committed to being a nationally relevant organisation with a
local focus.

Through its creative and accessible activities, KWMC hopes to inspire people to make a difference to
their lives, communities and environment. A former volunteer described the impact that KWMC has
had for her, saying: “it’s a great place to regain your confidence and make you feel like you’ve made
a difference.”

KWMC was recently cited by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as an example of innovative SEO
activity and an exemplar for innovation and knowledge sharing. (Vickers et al, 2017). Sharing
learning, from 23 years of Co-Creation, and continuing to evolve and explore what Co-Creation
means is key to KWMC’s practice. For example, the organisation is currently a core member of the
national Co-Creating Change network, which is coordinated by Battersea Arts Centre and is working
as a partner on a community-led Creative Civic Change arts project funded by Local Trust, National
Lottery Community Fund, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
led by Filwood Community Centre in Knowle West.

The Bristol Approach

The Bristol Approach is a project that highlights a strand of KWMC’s work that is about addressing
digital exclusion and tackling inequalities by Co-Creating relevant tools to address contemporary
issues. Between 2015 and 2018 KWMC worked with Bristol City Council (BCC) and Ideas for Change
(a Barcelona-based innovation company) to develop The Bristol Approach to Citizen Sensing, which
sought to address the extent to which ‘Smart city’ programmes are often developed and driven by
the few and do not always take into account the majority of people who live in, work in and
collaboratively make the city.

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A report by Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation, identified things that have held ‘Smart cities’
back from delivering real value:

 Not addressing the issues people really care about

 Not taking human behaviour as seriously as technology
 A lack of focus on the skills people need to use Smart technologies
 A lack of integration with other things going on in cities
 Not providing clear roles for people
 Not focusing on shared, open resources (Nesta, 2015).

These barriers intensify existing challenges of urban disadvantage and social injustice that confront
those cities struggling to be socially cohesive in this era of economic uncertainty. To counter this
dominant trajectory and with the belief that all people, whatever their background, should be able
to imagine, design and build the future they want to see, for themselves and their city, The Bristol
Approach to Citizen Sensing was developed as a framework to enable ‘Smart cities’ to be Co-
Created.

The framework included six steps and was underpinned by a philosophy of the ‘commons’. This is a
potentially powerful conceptual and methodological framework to collectively manage, or govern,
shared resources, and an alternative to privatisation or monopolistic public regulatory control. While
there is no single definition or uniform application of the commons, the aim of enabling collective
change making, through gathering a wide range of contributions from citizens and different
stakeholders, forms a critical part of the approach. The approach is gaining momentum with a
growing number of places, from Bologna to Bolivia, adopting it as a practical tool and ‘mind-set’ to
help guide collaborative decision making and structuring participation in how commons resources
(everything from natural assets to data) are contributed to and shared among diverse populations.

The steps of the Bristol Approach commons inspired framework are:

1. Identification: identifying issues people care about, mapping communities, organisations,

businesses and others affected by the issues who might be interested in working towards a
solution.

2. Framing: exploring issues and framing them as shared goals. Identifying if and how
technology and data could be utilised, uncovering resources that are available and
identifying gaps in resources or knowledge.

3. Design: working with people to Co-Create tools, governance and data infrastructure to
tackle issues.

4. Deployment: taking the tools created into communities to test.

5. Orchestration: drawing attention to what has been made, encouraging others to use tools
created and data collected, celebrate what has been Co-Created.

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 6. Outcome: assessing if and how goals have been achieved, finding out what has been
learned, sharing insights, creating solutions to issues, identifying opportunities and making
changes to available infrastructure.

The framework aimed to enable relevant citizen-generated data to be collected and used for the
common good and for the service of citizens. It was structured to ensure that Smart city
programmes are driven by issues that are relevant to local needs and take place at a community
level, with local people actively involved in designing, testing and evaluating. As with all KWMC’s
work, it starts with people who have expertise and/or lived experience regarding the issues facing
their communities.

Pilot projects, led by KWMC, took place in 2016 to test how the Bristol Approach framework works in
real communities, with real issues. The purpose was to learn from this process, to improve the
framework as a guide for citizens and cities and help inform the design and development of Smart
city programmes. One of the pilot projects focused on damp in homes. The issue of damp homes
was identified as a key area of concern after conducting a broad city-wide analysis of key issues
through visiting community activist groups, having conversations with city leaders and subject
specialists and employing artists to engage residents in conversations through more creative means.
Once damp homes had been identified as an issue that was impacting negatively on many people’s
lives and which citizen sensing could help to tackle then a broad range of people were invited (via
various on and off-line channels) to participate in a series of Co-Creation workshops.

Workshops were facilitated by artists and firstly focused on framing shared goals, moving towards
Co-Creating solutions and then on to hands-on making. Artists used creative approaches to enable
conversations, which helped dissolve hierarchies and persistently underlined the human aspect of
technology. This process opened up new ways of looking at things and brought people together
through play and making. The starting point for the Bristol Approach is the belief that citizens should
have a leading role in imagining, designing and building their future.

The initial framing workshops were attended by residents who had damp in their homes, energy
experts, housing charities, designers, hackers, artists and community activists. The group decided to
call the project ‘Dampbusters’. Once an overarching goal had been agreed smaller working groups
were formed with different leaders. Through creative Co-Creation workshops, people decided to
make frog-shaped cases to house damp sensors for measuring temperature and humidity. They also
designed an online damp reporting tool and a community ‘damp busting’ team of people trained to
support their neighbours. These tools were prototyped and tested with residents in east Bristol.
Prototype testing was followed up with evaluation and collaborative interpretation sessions with
residents. Ensuring that the people collecting the data were also the ones making sense of that data
and involved in the decision making around what to do with the data, was important.

The project nurtured a greater sense of people’s own individual potential to bring about change and
supported people to have greater autonomy in understanding and using data as a useful asset for
bringing about positive social change:

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 ‘I’ve realised how much power I have to effect change and how much power we have
working within a team.’ (Workshop participant, The Bristol Approach)

‘It’s a big step to make local people feel like they’ve got the power, explaining data, taking
the fear out of that space, and then getting them in an empowered space where they can
actually be involved.’ (Workshop participant, TBA)

The Bristol Approach enables the creative generation of solutions to issues that are apparent but
also, because of its integrated and holistic approach, it ensures that people become familiar with
data and how it can be used to tackle issues. People are therefore better equipped to tackle
unforeseen issues that they may encounter beyond the project remit. Furthermore, through the
collaboration between the human and digital sensing that is necessary in citizen sensing, or
environmental data gathering, people often become more attuned to their environments and start
using their own bodily senses more to notice changes in their environment.

Beyond individual agency the project, due to the Co-Creation processes applied, also increased a
sense of community and shifted notions of data collection, that are often focused on self-
improvement and self-quantification, to be orientated towards a shared goal for the common good.
For example, participants commented on how they would happily contribute information about the
interior of their homes to collective data sets if it would help their neighbours or others suffering
with damp homes.

Data sense making was a phase where the range of participants needed to expand once again to
ensure that government officials, charities, policy makers and industry professionals, and so on were
present alongside residents and community activists to Co-Create solutions around the collected
data. Sense making or ‘Solutions Workshops’ demonstrated the potential of Co-Creation projects to
inform the development of city services, infrastructure and new models of community action and
business development. Partners and experts highlighted the contemporary significance of Co-
Creation approaches in a society where the sands are shifting considerably in terms of the resources
available. For example, a member of Bristol City Council’s environmental health team explained that
they have to use a severity index regarding damp, whereby they have to be sure of the severity of a
situation before being able to investigate it:

‘I’m a senior environmental health officer… and am really interested in this project. We can
investigate problems with damp and mould growth in privately rented houses and flats, and
if it’s severe enough we do have legal powers… In the past we’d try to help by giving advice
and guidance to tenants and landlords but recent cutbacks mean we just don’t have the
resources to do this anymore. Therefore your project might go a long way to help plug this
gap.’ (Senior environmental health officer at Bristol City Council.)

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The pilot showed that Co-Creation projects such as this require a wide range of expertise and skills,
including; knowledge about neighbourhoods and networks, people and communications skills, data
infrastructure and governance, coding, interface and user experience design, product design,
behaviour, economics, anthropology, visualisation, sensor hardware, workshop facilitation,
documentation and sharing. It was clear that technology was only a small part of citizen sensing
work and that a much wider combination of tools and resources are needed to make change.
‘Dampbusters’ illustrated how key issues can be identified and then tackled through Co-Creating and
working together across disciplines and power structures. Sharing and collaboration are key in this
era of increased funding cuts. It is not for councils or others in positions of power to absolve
responsibility, but to establish an equality of input through participation as one of the many players
needed in the process of Co-Creation.

However, the willingness of those in decision making positions to engage in processes of

collaboration and Co-Creation can be a challenging sticking point; often the pressures to make fast
decisions and reach large numbers of people on a surface level wins over deeper more sustained
localised processes of Co-Creation which require much more advocacy. Lengthy advocacy work for
the value of Co-Creation and the participation in such approaches can end up distracting facilitators
from the actual work of Co-Creation. However, finding ways to articulate and demonstrate the value
of Co-Creation processes and approaches to working across disciplines and hierarchies is essential in
order to achieve the necessary diversity in such processes as well as ensuring Co-Creation happens
beyond silos and can gain the necessary support to sustain projects. KWMC has sought a range of
ways to tell the story of successful Co-Creation over 23 years, such as through seizing the value in co-
publishing articles, papers and chapters with academics, but also importantly in supporting Co-
Creation participants to tell their own story through a range of digital media, often working with
artists as well as professional industry mentors to enable this. Balancing the need to articulate the
value of Co-Creation practices in order to continue working sustainably, while also needing to be
immersed in the practice, can be a challenge.

We Can Make is another example of KWMC’s work that successfully engages decision-makers,
alongside local community members and specialists from other disciplines in processes of Co-
Creation, from its inception.

We Can Make

Home is shelter, safety, and stability. Yet, 100 years on from David Lloyd George’s promise of ‘homes
fit for heroes’ and the 1919 Addison Act, which ushered in Britain’s first mass wave of council
homes, people’s ability to access a secure, affordable home is more challenging than ever before.
Housing needs spill over into every part of a person’s life, affecting relationships, work, education,
physical and mental health and makes stark the inadequacy of our collective response. Conventional
strategies to access housing can be understood as reductively competitive, as they either require
people to divert more of their wages and savings to get on a property ladder devoid of bottom
rungs, or compel people to prove how ‘weak’ and ‘incapable’ they are in order to win eligibility for
austerity-rationed social housing. Instead of relying on speculative developers or last resort state
provision, we need new ways in which people and communities can meet their own housing needs.

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We Can Make was born of the frustration expressed by local residents that the housing market and
system was not working for them. KWMC set up a Co-Creation ‘test space’, as part of a broader
strand of ‘We Can Make’ activities, to explore whether and how housing could be ‘done differently’
if the starting point was the needs and knowhow of people and communities. The subsequent
process of We Can Make illustrates some of the key elements of Co-Creation practice.

Co-Creation requires working across different boundaries and disciplines, the mixing together of
ideas and experiences and using different tools and approaches to explore them. Housing is often
treated in a silo, as if it is disconnected from other issues such as health, employment, environment,
governance and adult social care. Early on, at one of its first Co-Creation workshops, We Can Make
worked to break these silos by hosting an ‘open data jam’, where people from different disciplines,
and experiences – from local residents to computer programmers and from artists to engineers –
came together to explore a wide range of open data sets that could be shaping people’s experience
of housing in Knowle West. Working in small mixed teams meant that people could pool their
expertise and identify emergent issues, into which they could ‘deep dive’ together. One team used
open data tools to analyse all the planning applications made in Knowle West over a six-year period.
They compared the data with Clifton (a wealthy neighbourhood in Bristol) and found that planning
applications were twice as likely to be rejected in Knowle West compared to Clifton. By highlighting
this issue, the analysis indicated that if housing prospects in Knowle West were to change, then
wider transformations in culture, regulation, and access to resources would need to be Co-Created.

KWMC works with the concept of ‘low floor, high ceiling’, whereby people can step into a space or
place and contribute quickly, easily and simply, but at the same time there is no limit on how
lengthy, complex or sophisticated their contribution might become. KWMC often works with artists
as facilitators of Co-Creation processes as they are often excellent mediators and use tactics of play
and hands-on making that effectively release inhibitions and allow people to feel safe and treated as
a ‘whole person’. Artists can also help incentivise participation in Co-Creation processes through
more subtle, tangential and dialogic engagement approaches, which are often more effective than
traditional invitations to participate in workshops or events.

We Can Make deployed this arts-led ‘low floor, high ceiling’ approach from its inception with a six-
month residency with artist Charlotte Biszewski (Figures 13.1 and 13.2). The residency focused on
surfacing the experience of housing in Knowle West through a process of door-to-door
conversations with people, through which the day-to-day struggle for adequate housing of many
individuals and families in Knowle West was manifest. As is articulated in Charlotte’s artist blog on
the KWMC website, this involved in-depth and often highly emotive exchanges on people’s
doorsteps:

[INSERT Figures 13.1 and 13.2 near here]

‘I wanted to open up questions of home and what makes a home. I wanted to look at
objects, what we surround ourselves with, how we adorn the place we live and why we do
this. How the physical space inside our homes makes us feel “at home”…

‘I couldn’t imagine that asking up-front would work. So I built a mobile cyanotype unit using
a bike trailer; it was something I could take door to door, asking people to bring me an

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object and take part in making long wallpaper hangings (using a mobile wallpaper making
machine). This is how a typical encounter looked:’

Knock Knock.

‘Yes?’

‘Hello, my name is Charlotte, I work at the Media Centre.’

The door remains ajar, the owner unwilling to open it fully to this stranger, who has just
turned up at their house uninvited. There is a silence.

‘Do you know it? Yes? Well I work there, I am an artist. I am creating a large wallpaper
hanging. In my trailer here I have wallpaper covered in this photographic formula.’

I bring out my scraggly piece of tattered blue demonstration wallpaper – it shows the
silhouettes of coat hangers and lace curtains, captured in the deep blue of cyanotype. They
look at me curiously – untrusting but interested.

‘I’m sorry we already have wallpaper and we don’t want to buy any more.’

‘No, I’m not selling it, I am making it. I am asking residents of Knowle West to bring me an
object. I put it in the trailer, and I expose the silhouette onto the wallpaper, it will be a long
hanging artwork out of everyone’s objects from the area...’

They pause, their face continues to be unimpressed, dead-pan.

We wait like that for a few seconds, me expecting them to slam the door on my face, or tell
me to politely jog-on.

Hang on a minute! They turn back for a minute and return, triumphant-looking, with a
child’s toy / glass ornament / frog statue / brass ring / some strange cooking implement.

‘Will this do?’

‘And then we put it in the trailer and wait for ten minutes. In these ten minutes, we are
locked into a conversation. In this time they tell me their stories. Their lives in Knowle West,
how they came to acquire the object, the way their neighbourhood has changed, their
successes in Weight Watchers, the pain of losing a partner, mother, son, the difficulties in
finding a job, a place to live, a recent pregnancy. They show me war medals, Crufts awards,
trinkets, gifts, tools and cups of tea. I am sniffed by a hundred different pugs, poodles,
Dobermans and a Jack Russell who licks my leg for about ten minutes.’

‘The people of Knowle West are as generous with their personal life stories as they are with
their offers of tea and biscuits. It has been eye-opening – not just to the objects and stories
but the people behind each door who surprised me every time.’

From: https://kwmc.org.uk/communityhousingblogpartthree/

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These intimate exchanges and relationships of trust, developed on doorsteps, created the conditions
for a first act of collective making among local residents and neighbours and formed the foundations
and possibilities for deeper participation. For example, some of the people who worked with
Charlotte came to KWMC to see their artwork and participated in Co-Creation workshops to develop
new ideas and practical tools to address housing needs. These are people who may never have
engaged in a process of Co-Creation if they had been asked to in a more conventional way.

Another critical part of Co-Creation is making visible and valuing the assets and resources available
to Co-Create with. Through processes such as Charlotte’s Mobile Wallpaper Making Machine, which
invited people to have a different kind of conversation about ‘housing need’, We Can Make was able
to surface and map the rich resources with which to Co-Create a different kind of approach to
housing in Knowle West. These resources included a high level of knowhow and skill in construction
trades among local people, and a high level of everyday resilience, with networks of families and
friends helping to meet people’s housing needs through mutual support and mixing and matching of
rooms available.

The resources also included identifying a new supply of land already in the hands of people; micro-
sites distributed in large back gardens, between buildings and leftover patches of land. Knowle West
is a typical 1930s neighbourhood, made up of mainly redbrick semi-detached homes, all built at very
low density. The research identified that over 2000 potential micro-sites exist in Knowle West, in
each of which a new one- to two-bedroom home could fit. The approach thereby opens up the
possibility of housing provision as ‘urban acupuncture,’ allowing families to grow, ageing residents to
downsize and those with changing mobility needs to adapt, without having to leave their
community. This, importantly, creates a citizen-led alternative approach to the more conventional
developer and council led ‘demolish and densify’ top-down regeneration tactics.

A vital part of Co-Creation, which perhaps surprisingly often gets forgotten, is the importance of
actually creating something. Co-Creation is an imaginative process, but it is not just a thought
experiment. We Can Make has sought to manifest tangible change in a number of ways. These
include building a prototype We Can Make Home on a micro-site next to a community centre. The
build used innovative flat-pack construction methods, employed local people in the construction
crew, worked with artists and local people to make the fittings and furnishings, and is now available
for local people to visit and stay in, as a way of testing out different ways of living. Local people have
Co-Created a Community Design Code which is a live document that helps set the rules for what any
new home on a micro-site should look like, what materials it should use, and sets standards for
energy efficiency and biodiversity, which are all priority issues for local people. We Can Make has
just secured funding to support its next phase which is working with local families and the
community to develop the pilot batch of 16 homes on micro-sites.

The importance of who tells the story about Co-Creation runs through the We Can Make project. As
part of the process to support local people shaping and telling the story, KWMC commissioned artist
Lily Green of No Bindings to help produce a resident-led Chat Show. Knowle Westers are the hosts
and guests on this bi-monthly show that is recorded and being collated into a series of broadcast
podcasts. The hot topics for discussion come from local people and the process of the wider We Can

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Make project. Each episode also features a guest artist, such as Bristol City Poet, Vanessa Kisuule
and artist Rediat Abayneh, who create new writing and artwork inspired by the conversations. The
artist's response to each Chat Show conversation helps to manifest the character and value of the
conversations, so again they can be shared and invite ever more diverse participants and audiences
into the Co-Creation process.

The creative contributions to the We Can Make project are wide ranging, from someone
contributing an object that becomes part of a cyanotype printed wallpaper, to a resident standing up
in a council meeting and suggesting that things could be done differently, to someone helping to
build a new prototype house. They are all feeding into the overall goal of social change, all
contributing to the story, all helping to shift both perceptions and the actual practical way housing is
developed. To Co-Create does not have to mean all sitting in a room together participating in every
aspect. Co-Creation can be a collection of diverse acts all curated in a shared direction. The
innovative quality and potential for impact of We Can Make was recognised when it was named as
one of The Observer and NESTA’s 2018 ‘New Radicals’, a bi-annual show case of the most innovative
ideas changing the UK for the better.

Conclusion

Through these case studies we have begun to understand how KWMC’s practice of Co-Creation
always:

 Starts with people and their interests

 Works towards a shared goal
 Uses creative approaches and arts practice to work across disciplines and power
structures
 Creates space for radical re-imagining
 Democratises and de-mystifies the tools and means of production.

We have illustrated how creative processes and skilled artist facilitators can nurture intimate
exchanges and develop relationships of trust, dissolving hierarchical assumptions and opening up
new possibilities in terms of what can be imagined and what can be made through Co-Creation. We
have discussed how pivotal it is for those involved in Co-Creation to articulate their own stories, and
how this can help extend understanding, in terms of both depth and reach, about the value of Co-
Creation.

We have also discussed some of the challenges around the advocacy work needed to engage policy
makers and decision-makers in participatory processes. Indeed, the challenge remains to galvanise
and secure this wider recognition and shift in resources and power relations to ensure that more
people can work together effectively and non-hierarchically towards the change they want to bring
about in their communities.

More research is now needed to better understand the role of policy makers and decision makers,
and how they can better engage with communities on non-hierarchical terms, and how a step up in

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terms of commitment, scale, and ambition to Co-Creation processes and practices can best be
achieved. As ever, the success and impact of Co-Creation processes depend upon remaining open
and mindful about what and whom is in need of transformation.

References

Bristol City Council (2015) Deprivation in Bristol 2015, Bristol City Council. Available from:
www.bristol.gov.uk/documents/20182/32951/Deprivation+in+Bristol+2015/429b2004-eeff-44c5-
8044-9e7dcd002faf

Matarasso, F. (2015) ‘Music and Social Change: Intentions and Outcomes’, A Restless Art [online]
https://arestlessart.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/2015-music-and-social-change.pdf

Nesta (2015) Rethinking Smart Cities from the Ground Up [online]

https://www.nesta.org.uk/report/rethinking-smart-cities-from-the-ground-up/

Vickers, I., Westall, A., Spear, R., Brennan, G. and Syrett, S. (2017) Cities, the Social Economy and
Inclusive Growth: A Practice Review, Middlesex: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

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FOURTEEN

Innovative collaborative policy development: Casa Fluminense – a

common house for addressing Rio de Janeiro’s public agenda
challenges
Inés Álvarez-Gortari, Vitor Mihessen and Ben Spencer

Introduction

This chapter explores some of the innovative ways in which collaborative approaches to developing
urban policy have been undertaken by the Casa Fluminense organisation (Casa Fluminense, 2019a) in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It introduces the work and values of Casa Fluminense, which has built on a recent
history of participatory planning and policy making in Brazil to develop and test public policy proposals
in the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region (RJMR). After introducing the current Rio de Janeiro context
and the extreme inequalities experienced across the RJMR, we then tackle the question of how these
urban challenges could be addressed through the collaborative work of Casa Fluminense and to what
extent their work can be understood as including Co-Creation approaches. We conclude that Casa
Fluminense’s work includes many successful elements of Co-Creation, especially when working at the
neighbourhood level. These feed into the effectiveness of the organisation in developing policy at the
metropolitan level, where many, but not of all the Co-Creation principles are utilised, particularly in
terms of mapping, networking and collaborative actions. We argue that this constitutes a hybrid
model of Co-Creation particularly suited to the challenging context of Rio de Janeiro and having an
impact at the neighbourhood and metropolitan scale.

Rio de Janeiro

The RJMR is an area facing chronic issues of governability, insecurity and inequality and includes 21
municipalities with extremes of marginalisation, exclusion and stigma and with urban issues that are
growing ever more socially, politically and physically complex (Ribeiro, 2017). The 21 municipalities
are subdivided into three regions: the municipality of Rio de Janeiro itself which has six million
inhabitants; the Baixada Fluminense, made up of 13 municipalities with a population of three
million; and the Leste Fluminense which has seven municipalities and also has around three million
inhabitants (See Figure 14.1).

[INSERT Figure 14.1 around here]

To provide an overview of the multiple challenges facing the residents of RJMR, some key facts
collated by Casa Fluminense in the form of Inequality Maps (Casa Fluminense, 2019b) are presented
here. In terms of transport, every day, around two million people commute from the municipalities
where they live to work in the city of Rio de Janeiro, where 74 per cent of jobs in the RJMR are

169
concentrated. Just over a quarter (26 per cent) of workers spend over an hour in their commute to
work. A person on a minimum salary who commutes daily by bus will spend 20 per cent of their salary
on their bus fare. Only 31 per cent of the population in the RJMR is close to a train station, metro
station, Bus Rapid Transit or tram stop. Currently, after decades of under investments and
infrastructure degradation, Rio’s inter-municipal trains transport an average of just 800,000 people
per day, compared to 1.5 million in the 1980s.

The situation regarding citizen safety is also unbalanced with homicide rates (per 100,000 population)
as high as 134.9 in Quiemados, in the Baixada Fluminense, in contrast to 29.3 in the city of Rio de
Janeiro. Similarly, in terms of sanitation, provision of sewers in RJMR varies from 83 per cent in the
city of Rio de Janeiro to 33–46 per cent in much of the Baixada Fluminense and falling to just 12 per
cent in Maricá, situated in the Leste Fluminense, while fresh tap water availability varies from 98 per
cent in the city to 58 per cent in Maricá. Unemployment in the city of Rio de Janeiro stands at 8 per
cent, rising to 13 per cent in parts of the Baixada Fluminense, while average income varies from 2,155
Brazilian Reals (£430/US$540) per month in the city to as low as 607 Brazilian Reals (£120/US$150) in
the municipality of Japeri. Partly as a result of these challenges, there is a widely held association
between the Baixada and Leste Fluminense regions and violence, which ignores other aspects of
residents’ everyday lives, something that Casa seeks to challenge.

Participatory planning in Brazil

Following a growing interest in a rights-based approach to urban development and management in

Brazil in the 1980s, the 1988 Constitution included articles affirming direct participation in urban
policymaking (Friendly and Stiphany, 2019). In the late 1980s and 1990s experiments with
participatory budgeting, notably in Porto Alegre, were developed and in 2001 Brazil’s Statute of the
city finally included the legal requirement for participation in the planning process. In the following
years, this took place through processes that were genuinely inclusive in some cases, using
participatory budgeting, municipal councils, the development of masterplans and town hall housing
meetings. However, it has been argued that this took place within the broader context of a continuing
political-electoral game that maintained City Council control over urban development, reduced the
potential of participatory approaches to guarantee rights to the city (Rolnik, 2013) and privileged
wealthier citizens who could engage more easily with the system (Caldeira and Holston, 2015).

Casa Fluminense

With the imminent hosting of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Finals and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games
in Rio, Casa Fluminense was founded in 2013 by activists, researchers and citizens who shared a vision
of a socially just, democratic and sustainable Rio de Janeiro. The founding of Casa Fluminense was the
result of conversations held among a group of people working, in their respective institutions, towards
Rio’s democratic development. Among Casa’s founding members there were human rights advocates
and community leaders from Rio’s favelas, academics including anthropologists, political scientists and
economists from Rio’s Federal University (UFRJ) and State University (UERJ) as well as people from

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arts-based organisations working with educational and cultural projects with young people. Therefore,
from the outset Casa Fluminense can be seen as a collaboration between those in academia, those in
public and private sectors and those in civil society. All the organisations involved worked at the
neighbourhood or municipal level, not at the metropolitan level, which was the reason for Casa’s
creation. The organisation’s mission was developed by this group as ‘to expand the public sphere and
foster the construction of public policies targeting the promotion of equality, democracy and
sustainable development in the entire metropolis and state of Rio de Janeiro.’ The creation of this
vision rested on the recognition that the challenges facing the city, such as the high levels of pollution
in the Guanabara Bay [the large bay in the centre of RJMR] and very long commuting times from the
periphery to the centre, were the result of factors at the metropolitan and state scale which required
action beyond the neighbourhood or municipal level. Casa also wanted to change the way in which
the periphery of the city was seen and imagined, with the Baixada and Leste areas being
predominately associated with the stigma of violence.

Casa Fluminense is structured as a non-profit civil society organisation that is independent and non-
partisan. Casa Fluminense’s wider network of over 70 organisations (Casa Fluminense, 2019a) is
regarded by Casa as its key strength. The organisation’s strategic planning cycles are open for all its
members to participate in and it encourages transparency through publishing its work plans. The
management and governance of the organisation are structured through three components. The
Board of Directors has overall responsibility for the direction of the organisation with the Consulting
Council in turn responsible for supporting the activities of the Casa network through the Executive
Nucleus. The Executive Nucleus is made up of a team of ten full-time staff members who carry out
Casa’s day-to-day activities. The organisation is funded by donations and grants from private
foundations such as the Open Society Foundation and Ford Foundation. The overall budget is around
two million Brazilian Reals (£400,000/US$500,000) per annum.

Casa Fluminense implements a three-pronged strategy of advocacy and the strengthening of civil
society. This is achieved through:

1. Monitoring public policy, with a focus on public investments and specific programmes,
keeping in mind the goals of equity, respect for human rights and government transparency.
2. Organising capacity building and information dissemination activities and debates in the
form of courses, seminars and working groups that involve leaders and social actors from
across RJMR.
3. Developing proposals targeted at overcoming the main challenges in Rio’s public agenda
and guiding innovative ways of collectively conceiving policies.

Casa Fluminense works through collaborative initiatives including the monitoring of public
expenditure and policy and through collating and publishing information in a form that is easy to digest
and use. An important example is the mapping of inequalities across metropolitan Rio including
aspects of mobility, work, income, education, safety, health and sanitation referenced above. Another
key strand of work is the appraisal of the existence and implementation of municipal policies, such as
master planning, through an online monitoring panel (Casa Fluminense, 2019c). After the founding of
Casa Fluminense and an initial information gathering and mapping exercise, the priority policy themes
of urban mobility, public safety and sanitation were chosen by the Casa team for the development of
policy solutions.

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Capacity building in the 21 metropolitan areas has been enabled through an annual Public Policies
short course. The aim is to provide a diverse range of civic and community leaders, activists,
journalists, young academics and other actors from across the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro
with the skills and confidence to engage with public policy debate and formation. Since it first ran in
2016, over two hundred people have completed the course. Each year the course is run in a different
municipality and in a typical year course participants will come from at least 15 different municipalities
across the metropolis. Some alumni have gone on to found their own organisations, some have run in
municipal elections, while others have been involved in planning and delivering later versions of the
course and its expansion to be run in São Paulo and Brasilia. The course has been evaluated by
participants at the mid-point and on completion of the series of weekly classes over the three to four
months it runs. Recognising how hard it can be to measure the impact of this and other programmes
Casa staff are participating in training to learn more about approaches to the evaluation of
programmes run by third sector organisations.

In 2016, the Casa Fluminense Fund was established to support grassroots social movements, local
institutions and activists who propose to organise monitoring and/or advocacy initiatives on public
policy issues aligned with Casa’s themes. That year grants of up to 200 Brazilian Reals (£40/US$50)
were allocated to initiatives promoted by the members of Casa’s network. These mostly included
workshops, campaigns and other events, all with general support and advice from Casa. The following
year 300 Brazilian Reals (£60/US$80) were available and activities expanded to include more
campaigns and events as well as the legal formalisation of organisations. Over the following years the
sums available increased further. In 2018 the funding was separated into a small grant scheme, with
minimal bureaucracy, for sums up to 300 Brazilian Reals (£60/US$80) and larger grants of 4,000
Brazilian Reals (£800/US$1,000) which were available to the public, whether organisations or
individuals, through an application process. The larger sums available led to an increase in creative
approaches to raising and understanding issues. For example, a series of four videos were made by
different collectives from across the metropolitan region about urban mobility issues. They were
screened at an event in the Complexo do Alemão favela organised by one of Casa’s partners, Institute
Raízes em Movimento (Roots in Motion Institute). The event included artistic performances such as a
poetry slam (‘Slam na Laje’) and debates. In dispersing its grants, Casa is effectively operating as a ‘re-
granter’ channelling funding from international sources to the local level. This means that barriers to
accessing international funding, such as high levels of literacy in English, appropriate contacts and
navigating complex application and monitoring systems, are removed. This results in Casa being able
to act as a catalyst, irrigating grass roots activity by taking on advisory, administrative and
accountability roles. In addition, the legal formalisation of local organisations means that they are able
to access other sources of funding directly themselves, thus the Casa Grant Funds can have a multiplier
effect.

This mapping, monitoring and capacity development leads directly into Casa’s own collaborative policy
development process which culminates in the publication of its ‘Agenda Rio’ document, produced
every two years to coincide with state and municipal elections. Each updated version is organised
differently according to the main themes of the moment, but always prioritising urban mobility, public
security and sanitation. The latest edition in 2018 aligns itself with the United Nations 2030

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Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2019) and hence is called ‘Agenda Rio 2030.’ This
identifies policy solutions for each of the eight current key Casa themes. These are Metropolitan
Politics; Employment and Income; Urban Mobility; Public Safety and the Right to Life; Basic Sanitation
and Guanabara Bay; Access to Health, Education and Culture; The Liveable City and finally Public
Administration, Transparency and Participation.

During the process of developing Agenda Rio, the Fórum Rio is a key event for Casa’s network
members to make contributions to the document. The Fórum Rio originally took place three times a
year, each time in a different location in the greater Rio area. The process of policy development used
by Casa Fluminense was initially conceived using the design thinking approach (Interaction Design
Foundation, 2019). In practice, it brought together Casa’s network of partners for a whole day to
discuss the metropolis’ most pressing issues. Through reviewing the success of the approach, the
process has now been refined to one meeting per year and employs a strategy whereby its website is
used in advance of the face-to-face meeting to invite participants to make suggestions on proposals
addressing the key Casa themes. These are then voted on online and combined using a collaborative
process, first on the website and then face-to-face at the meeting. The 12 Fórum Rios that have
already taken place have mobilised around two thousand people and over 60 civil society
organisations from across Rio’s metropolitan region. The Fórum Rio process opens up space for Casa
to create new partnerships with institutions that appear in its radar, enabling Casa to have a more
direct link to institutions from the full range of municipalities and also specific policy interests, such as
active mobility (walking and cycling) or water quality.

The current Agenda Rio 2030 document captures the 40 resulting policy proposals, with five for each
of the Casa themes. The printed Agenda Rio 2030 document is widely distributed among politicians,
especially municipal mayors and city councillors in order to influence decision-making processes and
to promote the principles of democracy, accountability, and sustainable development. At the last
municipal election, the document was given to 96 candidates, of whom 19 were elected. The
document is also available in an online format (Casa Fluminense, 2019d).

Casa Fluminense also works closely with partners from outside Rio. In 2017 it worked on the Virada
Sustentável (Going Sustainable) event. This has become the largest sustainability initiative in Brazil.
Starting in São Paulo it expanded to other cities including Manaus, Porto Alegre and then Rio de
Janeiro. The debates, playful activities and public events involved the planning and participation of
civil society organisations, cultural and social movements, museums, businesses, schools and
universities, among others, with the common goal of presenting a positive and inspiring understanding
of sustainability. The event is also based on the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,
which guide the projects implemented by the groups involved and so is a good strategic fit with Casa
Fluminense. Casa was one of the curators of Virada Sustentável events in Rio and held its largest
network meeting in São João de Meriti, a municipality in the Baixada Fluminense in the north of the
metropolitan area.

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Example of a Casa Fluminense neighbourhood project:

Parque de Realengo Verde

Realengo is a neighbourhood in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro (see Figure 1), an area with few
leisure spaces in comparison with those in the South and Central parts of the city. The
neighbourhood contains an abandoned space next to a former munitions factory. Since the
closure of the factory in the 1970s residents have been campaigning to transform the space into a
green public park, to be known as ‘Parque Realengo Verde.’ In addition to the recreational value
of the park, residents have argued that it would improve security, create new pedestrian routes
and counteract very high summer temperatures and local flooding.

Following approval through the process of developing Casa Fluminense’s Agenda Rio2030, the
project ‘Lata Ocupa’ was devised as a starting point for the permanent artistic and environmental
occupation of the space. This was led by the local Lata Doida Cultural Association and its partners
who Casa awarded a grant of 4,000 BRL (£800/$1000).

The recent history of plans for the open space had been controversial. In a neighbourhood
consultation meeting in March 2017, which was attended by the City Mayor, residents voted to
create the park in place of the construction of a condominium. This resulted in the Realengo Park
being included in both the Strategic Plan and a city government decree. However, the park was
not created as planned and the Mayor then proposed to split the park in two, constructing a
condominium on one half and creating a park in the remainder. This proposition was again
rejected by the community which continued to campaign for the whole area to be turned into
their vision for Parque Realengo Verde.

In the existing space there were some limited uses, with two football pitches and a junkyard but
much of the area was consumed with dumped rubbish and rubble. Before the start of the Lata
Ocupa event a mobilization of volunteers was organised to clear the area, supported by
COMLURB (the Council company responsible for cleaning of public spaces). The removal of
rubbish and rubble freed up considerable space that had previously not been accessible.

The Lata Ocupa event was held over a weekend in early August 2019. Saturday morning included
breakfast and more clearing of spaces along with tree planting, building a structure with a green
roof, creating a musical installation for children to play, building artistic installations, making
graffiti and high school students constructing a medicinal garden. Following lunch, a series of
workshops were held, followed by a party and musical performances that went on into the
evening. The Sunday followed a similar pattern but with an evening meeting with local leaders
and community groups focussing on local sustainability issues and occupations of public spaces.
Finally, there was a large party to close the event.

Media coverage of the event, including by the television station Globo Rio de Janeiro (Globo,
2019), was positive, helping to counteract a horrific school shooting in 2011 which many
associate with Realongo. Following the event, a petition ‘Parque Realengo 100 per cent Verde’,
co-organised with another NGO, Meu Rio, has gained over 10,000 signatures.

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Comparison of Casa Fluminense and Co-Creation approaches

In the following section we explore the similarities and differences to Co-Creation approaches to
better understand the potential of Casa Fluminense methods to inform approaches to addressing
issues of marginalisation, exclusion and stigma in other cities.

The strategies used by Casa Fluminense include many of the principles of Co-Creation (see Chapter 1,
Figure 1). Collaborative actions are developed with network members and the wider civil society in a
respectful and ethical manner that builds trust. Power relations are affected by the nature of the Casa
staff team who are diverse, coming from across the metropolitan region and not being ‘BBB’, a term
in Brazil from the Portuguese ‘Branco, Burguês, Bem-intencionado’ which means white, bourgeois and
well-intentioned. Power relations within Casa were examined in an action research study (Amann,
2016) which identified issues with the opportunities for making proposals and decision making of the
Network, Executive Nucleus, Consulting Council and Board and the complex and overlapping relations
between them. However, the author recognised that this was a dynamic organisation seeking to adjust
to address these issues and that overall there was the ‘astonishing ability of Casa to unite actors
coming from different backgrounds and topic areas, throughout the whole metropolitan region of Rio’
(Amann, 2016: 28).

Casa’s activities are grounded in very detailed mapping of the wider context, monitoring of policy and
targeted capacity building through the Public Policies course and the Casa Fluminense Fund
programme of grants. Through moving their meetings to different locations across the metropolis,
with an emphasis on the peripheral communities of the Baixada and Leste Fluminense, and developing
the skills and knowledge of local representatives through the Public Policies course both the events
and the participants are embedded in their locality while also benefitting from the wider perspectives
of network partners. The development of all policy recommendations is clearly attributed to the whole
family of the Casa Network in the Agenda Rio documents. The workshop and short course outcomes
include intangible products such as networks, skills, knowledge and shared understanding along with
more tangible policy recommendations which are captured, communicated and evaluated. Amann
gives examples of the strength of Casa’s approaches to opening up spaces for social change:

Giving a young black girl from the outskirts the opportunity to speak to public power holders
at the launch of the Agenda Rio 2017. Providing legitimate and valuable information in the
form of art. Connecting actors and problems in the broader level of the metropolitan region.
These all are achievements in which Casa shifts what can be done and whose knowledge
counts. (2016: 28)

During their work with Virada Sustentável Casa Fluminense was introduced to the concept of Co-
Creation as used by that organisation. However, having considered using the term Co-Creation for
their own Fórum Rio events they decided it was not appropriate. This was after reflecting on the fact
that Casa had already developed a starting point of identifying its eight key policy themes and that
they had developed a tried-and-tested methodology for organising and running meetings that they

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wished to use – rather than actively Co-Creating them. These two factors resulted in the feeling that
this aspect of the Casa approach was not truly Co-Creation and that they would be misrepresenting
themselves and the principles of Co-Creation if they used that label for the overall process. Following
criticism of the extent of truly Co-Creative opportunities within the Virada Sustentável approach, that
organisation has also stopped using the term. This reveals an informed questioning of the use of the
Co-Creation terminology and a need for careful use.

The development and expansion of the Casa Grant Fund over the last four years have provided
increasing resources for local communities and actors to create their own forms of advocacy within
the framework of the Agenda Rio 2030. It can be argued that this is much closer to the spirit of the
Co-Creation principles and it is notable that, given this flexibility in the Casa grant funded projects,
they have become increasingly creative in their work with artists and use of artistic practices to explore
issues and engage with communities.

By using this range of approaches, it can be seen that Casa’s goal of improving social engagement in
public policy debate across the whole metropolis is achieved at a range of connected scales. At the
metropolitan level information and policy are mapped and made available for campaign use
municipality by municipality. Across RJMR the key themes are agreed collaboratively with partners
through Forum Rio using a pre-determined methodology. Following Participatory Action Research
framing this can be seen as an ‘invited space’ for participation where the rules are already set
(Gaventa, 2006). By virtue of the fact that Casa Fluminense is working at the metropolitan scale, there
is also a mismatch with Co-Creation’s focus on the neighbourhood and artists or artistic practices are
not employed in their work at this scale.

However, at the neighbourhood level, participation in the Public Policies short courses and especially
the Casa Grant Funds can be seen as enabling something closer to ‘claimed spaces’ (Gaventa, 2006),
that are created more autonomously by less powerful people and provide empowerment and
resources for action by communities and local leaders. As emphasised by Amann, ‘This communication
– not the one Casa is doing, but the one it is allowing – is very important. […] These exchanges between
people amplify the vision of people: they manage to see what is happening on the other side. ’ (‘Danilo’
quoted by Amann, 2016: 29)

These actions, along with Fórum Rio, which holds its face-to-face meetings in peripheral
neighbourhoods, in turn contribute to Agenda Rio 2030 which is orientated to the metropolitan level.
This means that a hybrid approach to Co-Creation is being used in the context of RJMR. A more
recognisable and complete form of Co-Creation is enabled at the neighbourhood level, which is in turn
contributing to policy development and actions at the metropolitan level. This is an important way for
Casa to inform and legitimise their policy proposals. As noted above, many of the most challenging
issues facing the residents and workers of Rio cannot be effectively tackled solely at the
neighbourhood level. For example, tackling pollution in Guanabara Bay requires combined action
across the many municipalities in its watershed.

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Conclusion

The Casa Fluminense collaborative approach shares many similarities and strengths with Co-Creation
in that it is based on detailed mapping of the context, building networks and trust, increasing local
capacity for action and monitoring the impact of policy interventions. Divergence comes in terms of
scale and related practices. At the top level, Casa Fluminense provides a carefully developed overall
framework of policy themes (linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals) within which it works
with its network of organisations to produce policy outcomes. This process does not involve artistic
practices or a neighbourhood scale and it is notable that Casa has been uncomfortable about adopting
the term Co-Creation for their work. In the Brazilian context another organisation, Virada Sustentável,
has also retreated from using the terminology following criticism that they were not fulfilling the ideals
of Co-Creation. This demonstrates a positive critical engagement with the use of both language and
methods and the challenge of following the principles of Co-Creation.

However, at the neighbourhood scale, nested within Casa’s framework of themes, we have described
how there are opportunities for more truly Co-Creative approaches to flourish. This is through using
the Casa Grants Funds programme to enable residents, artists and stakeholders to use arts-based
methods, if they wish, to understand and communicate about urban challenges at the local level and
then to contribute this knowledge to wider policy recommendations at the metropolitan level. The
strength of this approach is in fusing the benefits of Co-Creative activities at the neighbourhood level
with mapping, networking and policy development at the metropolitan scale to provide a hybrid
approach to Co-Creation suited to the context and challenges of Rio. This has the potential to improve
the living conditions of the marginalised and stigmatised across the wider city. It also suggests an
approach that could be adopted more widely to create greater impact from neighbourhood Co-
Creation initiatives in other cities at the metropolitan scale.

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References

Amann, D. (2016) Inside the Network Hub: Learnings and Reflections from a network of NGOs,
Activists & Researchers in Rio de Janeiro Unpublished MA dissertation, Institute of Development
Studies Sussex University.

Caldeira, T. and Holsten, J. (2015) ‘Participatory urban planning in Brazil’, Urban Studies 52(11):
2001–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098014524461

Casa Fluminense (2019a) ‘About Casa Fluminense,’ Casa Fluminense [online]

http://casafluminense.org.br/a-casa-en/ [Accessed 4 July 2019].

Casa Fluminense (2019b) ‘Inequality Map,’ Casa Fluminense [online]

http://casafluminense.org.br/inequality-map/ [Accessed 20 August 2019].

Casa Fluminense (2019c) ‘Monitoring Panel of the Municipal Management,’ Casa Fluminense
[online] http://casafluminense.org.br/projetos/monitoring-panel-of-the-municipal-management/
[Accessed 20 August 2019].

Casa Fluminense (2019d) ‘Agenda Rio,’ Casa Fluminense [online]

http://casafluminense.org.br/agenda-rio-2/ [Accessed 20 August 2019].

Friendly, A. and Stiphany, K. (2019) ‘Paradigm or paradox? The “cumbersome impasse” of the
participatory turn in Brazilian urban planning’, Urban Studies, 56(2): 271–87.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098018768748

Gaventa, J. (2006) ‘Finding the Spaces for Change: A Power Analysis’, IDS Bulletins, 37(6): 23–33.

Globo (2019) Moradores de Realengo fazem mutirão de limpeza [online]

https://globoplay.globo.com/v/7852967/ [Accessed 11 October 2019].

Interaction Design Foundation (2019) ‘5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process’ Interaction Design
Foundation [online] https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-design-
thinking-process [Accessed 5 July 2019].

Ribeiro, L.C. de Q. (ed) (2017) Urban Transformations in Rio de Janeiro: Development, Segregation,
and Governance, Springer.

Rolnik, R. (2013) ‘Ten years of the City Statute in Brazil: from the struggle for urban reform to the
World Cup cities’, International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 5:1: 54–64. DOI:
10.1080/19463138.2013.782706

United Nations (2019) ‘Sustainable Development Goals: 17 Goals to Transform Our World’ United
Nations [online] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/ [Accessed 5 July 2019].

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FIFTEEN

Working the hyphens of artist-academic-stakeholder in Co-Creation: A hopeful rendering of a

community organisation and an organic intellectual

Bryan C Clift, Maria Sarah da Silva Telles and Itamar Silva

Introduction

Perhaps it is easy to look at a city like Rio de Janeiro and despair. The urban inequalities are nowhere
more noticeable than in the city’s favelas where approximately one fifth of the local population lives.
Brazil’s favelas, like other areas of apparent temporariness and marginality around the world, are
quickly becoming dominant modes of current urbanity (Davis, 2006). Frenzel (2016) proposed that
two discourses commonly shape popular understandings of the favela. The first is a narrative of
despair. This narrative recognises that those who live in favelas, or favelados, are situated at the
intersection of multiple power formations and inequalities, and experience the stigmatising effects of
mainstream media and policy through drug and gang activity, low income levels, unsanitary
conditions, lack of education, policy brutality, spatial stigmatisation, gender- and sex-based violence,
employment and education discrimination, and racism. The second narrative, and which is less
prominent, is a narrative of hope. In this narrative, the favela is more of a natural constituent of
urbanisation as its spaces are neighbourhoods, sites of the vibrancy of urban life, collective agency,
self-reliance, creativity, and entrepreneurialism. The winning of rights and legal positions or increased
access to public services are examples of the progress of this narrative. Rio de Janeiro is replete with
narratives of both despair and hope (Perlman, 2009). It is within a narrative of hope, and in particular
the creative activism in one favela, Santa Marta, that we focus. Co-Creation is capable of responding
to urban stigma through creativity, collectivity, and activism, and thus also capable of generating
narratives of hope, which develop in this chapter.

From 2016 to 2019, a team of more than 30 researchers and activists from the EU, Mexico, and Brazil
worked together to deliver Co-Creation projects in five cities around the world. Co-Creation is both a
methodology and a knowledge project that brings together researchers, artists, and stakeholders in
order to produce shared knowledge that can challenge, resist, or modify urban stigmatisation (see
Chapter 1). Rio de Janeiro was one case among the five. In 2018, more than 20 researchers from the
EU and Mexico, NGO members from the EU, and several researchers from Rio de Janeiro, collaborated
with local stakeholders in Santa Marta, a favela in Rio de Janeiro’s Zona Sul (South Zone). The key
community organisation in Santa Marta with whom the project collaborated was Grupo Eco, which is
led by Itamar Silva. Over the course of five days, researchers, artists, and stakeholders aimed to
produce shared knowledge that could challenge, resist, refute, or modify urban stigmatisation. Here,
we refer to Co-Creation as a methodology and knowledge project as outlined in Chapter 1; we refer
to cultural activism as a broader set of artist-activist/stakeholder practices or projects.

In this chapter, the authors reflect on the Co-Creation process in Santa Marta in 2016–19 by examining
the relationships among artists-researchers-stakeholders, and – more intensively – the role of
community organisations and activists and likewise the role of the researcher. Like other participatory

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methodologies, Co-Creation centralises the relationship between academic and non-academic
partners (Banks and Hart, 2018). Examining these relationships is a way of ‘working the hyphens’ (Fine,
1994); that is, the process of examining the relationships between people in research. Fine suggested
that in doing so writers interrogate how written representations may speak of or for Others through
methodological, ethical, and epistemological considerations, a point reiterated by Ribeiro (2019) in a
Brazilian context. A key aspect of this process is placing research and researchers in a broader
historical political, economic, and social context. As this Co-Creation project brought together
researchers from the Global North with researchers, stakeholders, and artists from the Global South,
a key aspect of the reflection here focuses on Global North-South relations. To guide our reflection,
we drew on observations from Co-Creation projects in Santa Marta from 2016 to 2019 and conducted
interviews with two academic professors in Brazil, two Brazilian NGO leaders, and eight Santa Marta
residents and Grupo Eco members aged 18 to 70 in order to gain insight into various moments over
Grupo Eco’s more than 40-year history. First, we contextualise Santa Marta and Grupo Eco in terms of
its historical inequalities and the role that creative expression and activism have played in a post-
dictatorship Brazil. Second, we paint a picture of Itamar’s central role in the history and creative
activism of Eco; he is also the leader, gatekeeper, and partner of the Rio Co-Creation case study. We
conclude by unpacking some of the elements that should be considered when engaging with local
leadership in co-creative endeavours. Co-Creation represents an opportunity for the urban
marginalised to contribute to knowledge production across the Global North and South in a way that
incorporates different perspectives, traditions, and origins of knowledge. If successful, Co-Creation
can contribute meaningfully to the debate around the place of marginalised people in knowledge
production. We argue that in order to achieve its aims as a creative, participatory methodology and
knowledge project, any Co-Creation project must examine the relationships it builds between its three
key actors. To do so requires contextualisation in the country, city, and spaces in which it is
undertaken, and indeed the people with whom it works.

Santa Marta and Grupo Eco: A history of popular cultural activism in Rio, a Brazilian context

Santa Marta is located on the steep hillside of Dona Marta in the historic Botafogo neighbourhood in
Rio de Janeiro. Migrants from the north began to populate the hillside, a prelude to the significant
Brazilian rural-to-urban shift beginning in the 1940s. Protected by the vegetation on the hillside,
people made homes out of wood and stucco; continual migration, a lack of water and electricity, and
the muddy hillside were all challenges residents faced. This was exacerbated by the lack of legal
recognition for the settlement, which deprived residents of public services. Today, houses are made
of brick, and running water and electricity have been installed in homes. The residents who now live
there (approximately 5,000) are bounded on one side by a wall built by the government to prevent
further expansion, and on the other a funicular to transport people up and down the hillside. Still,
inadequate garbage collection and open ditches pose serious health risks in the favela. Santa Marta’s
history of residential activism to improve the quality of life there includes resistance, struggle, sorrow,
and hope. Increasingly, activism in Santa Marta, like the rest of Brazil’s cities, incorporates artistic and
cultural expression.

The terrain for activism, democratic participation, and citizenship in Brazil has shifted over the last 50
years. In the waning few years of the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship in the late 1970s and early

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1980s, discernible collective action began to emerge. A prominent example is the mobilisation of the
metalworkers’ unions and strikes that challenged the military with new leadership, and which gave
rise to the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) – the Workers’ Party – and leftist leader, future President,
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula, (Bourne, 2008). In reverberation, it is here in the 1980s that forms of
collective action (Dagnino, 2006; Caldeira and Adriano, 2014) from a range of groups of people grew
and strengthened, notably slum movements, black resistance, gender and sexuality movements, and
ecological action. These leftist movements fostered the emergence of a new political imaginary
wherein democratic participation became possible (Dagnino, 2006; Ferrero et al, 2019). In the 2000s,
a new protagonism emerged in the public space of Brazilian cities – partially in response to the formal
integration of the left in formal governmental and bureaucratic systems. Groups of mostly young,
black people living in segregated and stigmatised areas, favelas, mobilised cultural expression and
intervention in the form of painting, writing, film, and other digital and electronic media to occupy
spaces historically dominated by upper classes (Caldeira and Adriano, 2014). With often aggressive
language, they denounced the discrimination against them, refuted their positioning as victims, and
re-signified the city’s criminalised spaces (Caldeira and Adriano, 2014). Beginning in Sao Paulo, such
groups spread across Brazil’s urban environments, transgressing and even inverting the cultural
productions of urban space. As cultural productions continue to be a form through which activism,
resistance and social justice are expressed and might occur, it is at this contemporary juncture in
Brazilian history and culture that Co-Creation becomes a suitable academic methodology that can
contribute to such agendas.

In 1976 in Santa Marta, eight people came together to publish a community newspaper, The Eco.
Headquartered in Itamar Silva’s parent’s home, the paper recorded activities in the community and
reflected upon the role of the Residents’ Association (Pandolfi and Grynszpan, 2003). Over time, and
as the group expanded its work in the community with ditch digging and cleaning, building housing,
or cultural activities, they became known as ‘the Eco people’ (Pandolfi and Grynszpan, 2003). Grupo
Eco – self-defined as ‘a school without walls’ – was established. It nurtured two major areas of work:
those needs within the favela; and those in connection with other favelas, institutions, NGOs,
government, or universities in Rio. Explicit in its agenda has been a strong cultural focus. Its initial
newspaper, a cultural product itself, included publicising cultural events, like samba and festivals, and
as it expanded its cultural expressions did, too. Its annual holiday camp was an example of responding
to the total absence of vacations for children in the favela who, by-and-large, stayed in their homes
through the summer months. For children, the opportunity to move beyond the walls of the favela
safely was rare. This was the first holiday camp offered in favelas in Rio.

Another cultural output of Grupo Eco was its arts productions, such as theatre, music, and visual art.
One notable example is its theatre group, which formed in 1977 to communicate with residents. The
impact of the theatre activities, in particular, resonated with residents. One favela resident (43,
female) recounted her experience in theatre with Eco:

‘I fell in love with theatre. Looking for a theatre group in 1992, I found the Eco theatre group
in the nursery at Casa Santa Marta. Itamar was an actor. Eventually he invited me to the Eco
group for a Sunday meeting. I was very young and I wanted to be an actress. I took theatre

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 courses in other places and tried to become an actress. The Eco group captivated me, and I
started working at the holiday camp.’

Through her school and work with Eco, this resident aspired to and then did go to college and pursue
a degree and profession in communications. From her contacts in the communications industry, the
news organisation TVT recorded the holiday camps and published a piece on them, a testament to the
influence of Eco, its participants, and their ability to speak to broader audiences about the challenges
and possibilities in Santa Marta. The theatre group performed in schools, the samba school of São
Gonçalo, other favelas of the State of Rio de Janeiro, and in Santa Marta, and other venues during a
short series of tours. The group’s formation and their performances are reminiscent of the leftist
politics and inspirations of Boal (2006) and Freire (2005): theatre brought residents together,
introduced avenues of mobility around the city and beyond, called forward discussion of important
issues in the urban margin and its stigmatisation, and brought some of those discussions with them
around to the places in which they performed. This resident still volunteers with Eco.

Perhaps less artistic but no less cultural, another example is from the area of tourism. One resident
(45, female) is the Founder and Operator of a tourism initiative in Santa Marta. Born in Santa Marta
and a participant in Eco since adolescence, she lives there with her son and mother. From her
experience with Eco and while studying tourism at university in the early 1990s, she sought to bring
political activism into the domain of tourism. In Santa Marta, she created a social enterprise in her
tour to achieve this. She shared that the central aim of her company is “to disrupt favela stereotypes,”
which she framed like this:

‘We go to discussions with other groups that are developing tourism in other favelas to
develop a communitarian tourism base. We do understand that if we do not make discussions
of the favela then people will never come here and will never develop a different perspective
of the favela. We have to work very hard with stereotypes. Sometimes, people come in here
reinforcing stereotypes rather than deconstructing them.’

Walking through the streets and homes in Santa Marta, she shared the favela’s history, sought to
educate about and provoke consideration of the challenges the neighbourhood faces, and fostered
discussion rather than offering a romanticised or stigmatised image. Her efforts directly resonate with
the contemporary efforts to resignify the city’s stigmatised spaces (Caldeira and Adriano, 2014).

Cultural expression has been a central role for progressive moments, actions, and activism in Santa
Marta for more than 40 years. Arguably, Eco’s 40-plus year existence resides at the heart of this
collective mobilisation. That history is evident, too, when walking through its streets. Graffiti
frequently splashes across walls with political messages, such as one cascading colourful
representation of Santa Marta with the message, ‘The rich want peace to continue to be rich, we want
peace to stay alive.’ The statue of Michael Jackson about three quarters of the way up the hill
celebrates the celebrity-musician from when it was selected as one site in Rio for the filming of ‘They

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don’t care about us.’ That knowledge and statue now helps funnel tourists up the slope to Santa
Marta. In its shops, a range of material culture produced by local artists depicts life in the favela, which
serves the double purpose of contributing to the local economy and claiming some of the ground upon
which favelas are depicted.

For the purposes of Co-Creation this history is important. Artistry and activism have long been present
in Santa Marta. Among the three central actors of Co-Creation’s methodology – artists-researchers-
stakeholders – Eco members and residents form a central part of the favela’s stakeholders while the
cultural vibrancy of Santa Marta only expands. A strong historical relationship already existed among
the three methodological actors. For the researchers from the Global North who arrived in Santa
Marta, we suggest that the capacity to do Co-Creation became a moment for a meeting of knowledges
of the Global North and South, and of community activists, artists, and researchers. Itamar, also
because he is an organic intellectual as we next explain, played a pivotal role in this meeting and
process.

Community partners, academics, and organic intellectualism in Santa Marta

Essential to the success of Co-Creation are collaborations with community partners. The community
groups and individuals those striving to do Co-Creation seek to work with are numerous and varied.
How researchers link up with a community and with whom are points of choice and tension. Working
with an entire organisation, people with specific roles, a single individual, a team or group, or an
amalgamation of individual activists, artists, or residents all bring unique benefits and challenges. Both
how people are involved in their community and how they become involved in a project carry
significance for the shape, direction, and success of a project. Like other participatory methodologies,
Co-Creation raises issues about power relations, hierarchies, and ownership in the research/co-
creation process, which need to be acknowledged by all participants (Mitchell et al, 2017). The process
by which the team of researchers and NGO members established links for our Co-Creation project in
Rio de Janeiro, and therefore began to form relationships between project members and the
community of Santa Marta, occurred through Itamar.

From the beginning, some researchers from The Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC)
and Grupo Eco worked with the academic drivers of the project from the Global North in the planning
and preparation of the workshop. The research team had an immediate researcher-community from
previous PUC-Eco collaborations. Because Eco opened their network, the team were able to access a
range of people using cultural practices in response to urban stigma, notably: activist-oriented
tourism; other tour operators; graffiti artists such as Tick (see Chapter 16); local residents with whom
the research team could speak and conduct activities, such as urban mapping, photography, and food
practices; Escola Bola’s football players and coaches with whom the research team spoke and played;
and slam-poets with whom the research team performed. Part of this was to assist in the development
of the project, but part of this was also to communicate with the research team the cultural activism
already happening in Santa Marta. To begin setting in motion all of these opportunities, the Eco group
brought the idea of working with the research team for discussion. They were an advocate for the
project. It represented a transformative methodology using creativity to combat stereotypes, promote

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social justice, and account for perceptions of various urban actors. The project also sought to bridge
Eco’s commitments and agendas.

Since the 1970s, the favela became a prominent area of study for social scientists, notably among
urban studies, anthropology, and sociology. Of this work, Valladares (2019) raised the question, ‘has
the favela become the location of research, rather than its object?’ (p.135). The distinction here is
important. The former risks reifying the very social stigmas that have claimed a strong
representational form through a variety of knowledge. Valladares points to three dogmas in academic
research: a) the construction of the favela as a ‘different’ space, which marks it out as separate; b) the
territorialisation of the favela as a space of and for poverty, which actually fortifies this idea; and c)
reducing the idea of the favela into singular association, undermining their diversity, differences and
distinctions of favelas while treating them all the same. Santa Marta, in particular, has received
considerable attention in the last 15 years because of its designation as the model favela for
pacification beginning in 2008, its location within Zona Sul, and magnification through investment
from the Federal Plan for Growth Acceleration (PAC) and international attention from global sporting
mega-events (Clift and Andrews, 2012; Gaffney, 2010). Although Eco’s leadership knew well the
debates about research in favelas and the challenges/possibilities that it brings, the organisation
welcomed the research team in the spirit of collaboration and being part of their fight for social justice,
both of which speak to the group’s community-driven mindfulness.

Recognising the numerous challenges of Santa Marta residents and his lifetime commitment to
improving the quality of people’s lives, Itamar’s approach to leadership and political action can be
characterised as that of an organic intellectual. Gramsci (2006) suggested that organic intellectuals
carry a unique ability to see hegemonic conceptions of the world and bring about modes of thought
that challenge and engage with the power structures affronting self-empowerment and sovereignty.
Importantly, Gramsci made a distinction between ‘traditional’ professional intellectuals who have
established standing through specialised training, roles, and professions (for example teachers,
doctors, lawyers, and so on) with accrued socioeconomic statuses that set them apart from other
sections of social and political life, and ‘organic’ intellectuals who arise within and in response to
political moments and challenges of marginalised or oppressed groups. In Itamar’s case, he founded
and led Eco while also choosing to work with two NGOs and then the Instituto Brasileiro de Analises
Sociais e Economicas (IBASE) – a not-for-profit citizenship organisation founded in 1981 that
contributes to public debates on social issues in Brazil and that seeks to build a democratic culture of
rights, strengthen associative fabric of civil society, and broaden citizen participation in policy making
(IBASE, 2019). Maintaining his connection to Santa Marta and favela life is evident not only in his
employment choices but his residential ones, too.

Itamar chooses to live in Santa Marta despite having the ability to move out, in what would otherwise
be considered an upward socioeconomic change. One professor of sociology (UFRJ, 70, male) who was
an intellectual mentor to Itamar spoke about his choice:

‘A striking example is the fact that he did not stop living in the favela, and surely he would
have the financial, cultural and intellectual conditions to leave. A lot of people go out and stay
connected in a favela, but no longer live there. This is a process of upward mobility that goes

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 beyond the favela's space. Itamar? No, he still lives there. Most of the favela's organic
intellectuals leave the favela precisely because they are intellectual and organic. Not Itamar.
He makes a point of staying in the favela. For me, it's Itamar brand.’

Itamar’s choice to live in Santa Marta illustrates the connection he shares with its people and the
community while he drives forward a progressive, consciousness-raising agenda. A further example of
Itamar’s strong connection to Santa Marta, the professor noted, are the holiday camps that he runs
each year, remarking that Itamar takes a break from work to run these. Using his holiday time away
from work, Itamar lead’s Eco in their engagement with 2–300 children of Santa Marta. In doing so, he
reiterates the enduring relationship that he has developed with the community. That professor further
remarked that he has ‘tremendous admiration for Itamar’ and he is not the only one. There are many
scholars who research favelas and who admire Itamar because of his ‘authenticity as an intellectual of
the periphery in general and of the favela in particular […]. He is one of the favela’s organic
intellectuals.’

The impact of Itamar, Eco, and their cultural activism is profound. Consider the following testimonies
from Santa Marta residents and Eco participants. One woman (26) discussed Itamar’s and Eco’s
presence in Santa Marta:

‘Itamar is an advisor, someone you can question. Today, I have a relationship with him of
Respect. Itamar plants the seed for the future. What is the continuity for Eco? Who are the
next to continue it? You can't think of Santa Marta without Eco.’

She also communicated the impact her participation had on her:

‘Today, as an adult you may be able to discern issues of inequality, but when you are a
teenager, especially in a favela, it is very difficult for you to do so. It is very difficult for you to
position yourself in the world. Saying “no, I am a beautiful, black woman, I am empowered, I
can work in the field I choose” is difficult. Even to create a hope that you can and are capable
of achieving is hard. We know the issues that limit our journey. Women in leadership positions
are difficult to find, but we cannot lose hope that somehow we can achieve and achieve
together. I think that Eco has brought me, or strengthened within me, if not created this
feeling that I and we can win. But it is of no use if your community is not with you, thriving
together [...] Eco helped me a lot to position myself. I survived in terms of gender, race, being
able to speak. I work in an engineering company that has many more men than women. There
is the issue of race and gender. I am a woman, black and peripheral.’

Another woman Santa Marta resident (18) went as far as to compare the children who participate in
Eco against those that do not:

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 ‘Eco has been here for a long time. Everyone knows this. Itamar’s ideas spread. Eco is
something that cannot die... something we cannot let die. The children who are not in Eco,
unfortunately, are in drug trafficking. There are teenagers who went to my classes, they are
trafficking now. I don't keep in touch. They really wanted to show off, to make easy money.’

Like the tourism activist previously, these two women and other residents communicated the
relevance and importance of Eco and Itamar in improving the lives of those who choose to join Eco.
The group’s work is a continual community effort to challenge, refute and combat urban marginality.
Itamar’s character, and his leadership, prominence, and commitment in Santa Marta with Eco evince
the character of an organic intellectual. For the research team, he became the hinge through which
the academic-artist-stakeholder relations were made possible.

For researchers seeking to do Co-Creation, recognition and attention must be given to the idea of who
has control over a project. Researchers must develop the comfort to cede control. This comes with
tremendous upsides in some instances, as well as several challenges. In the Santa Marta case study,
links were established with a person and a group with such strong ties to the community that we were
linked into a network of people and places in numerous ways. Yet, entering into a network of such
strong communal ties also brings tension.

Reflections on the importance of context and (intellectual) leadership in Co-Creation

After our experience of Co-Creation in Santa Marta, we recognise that what does and does not work
is always contingent on the people in the context of the research itself. In the Santa Marta project,
the people with whom the research team collaborated played a pivotal role; these were prominently
Eco and Itamar. The context of Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro, and Brazil’s broader position in the Global
South offer further insights into the workings of co-creative practices. Through these two important
considerations, people and context, we offer several reflective questions for readers considering Co-
Creation as a methodology.

Collaborating in the Global South makes us aware of broader power dynamics. The very authorship of
this chapter drew together different positionalities. The first author, Bryan, is a cultural studies
researcher from the Global North who has limited time and experience in Rio de Janeiro but is
learning; he does not have a grasp of Portuguese beyond a basic level. In Santa Marta, he represents
an extreme outsider who is anxious about conducting research that colonises the urban marginalised.
The second author, Sarah, has worked as a professor of sociology and urban marginality for more than
30 years. Despite this track record and her location within the Global South, she, too, faces challenges
around producing knowledge when trying to write not from the point of view of a researcher but
rather from the point of view of the urban marginalised. Is it up to academics to write about favelas?
Or is it for its residents to do? Are there ways of producing knowledge that better enable this to occur?
These are questions that have been placed on the table of sociology for some time in the Global North
and South. The third author, Itamar, has a vested interest in the community but he cannot speak for

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everyone. Inside the favela, he faces the challenge of producing knowledge that is valuable for
residents while acknowledging the impossibility of representing everyone. Collectively, we come from
radically different perspectives. This chapter itself is a good opportunity to discuss and grapple with
these challenges.

In the case of Santa Marta and Eco, a rich history of cultural activism and artistry brought together in
different ways already exists. It is clear that artistic and creative endeavours in Santa Marta open
‘cracks in the system’ (Mouffe, 2013). Thus, an important aspect of this chapter is our aim to recognise
the marvellous social and cultural activism that largely goes un-noticed by academia that tends to see
things only through its own theories, methods, and views. Co-Creation is an opportunity to produce
knowledge through a variety of perspectives; it is one that can reframe how academic knowledge is
produced by doing so more on the terms of those about whom it produces that knowledge. This
process, however, is not simplistic, nor straightforward.

Where cultural activism already exists, researchers from both the north and south risk becoming
colonisers themselves of knowledge already in existence. Doing so can reify divisions within a city’s
centre and margin. This can also reify the divisions between the Global North and South wherein the
South and urban marginalised are positioned as underdeveloped and known only through a colonialist
or neo-imperialist fantasy. Researchers, from the Global North or South, in this framing, descend upon
the favela with knowledge to share or pass on to ‘uneducated’ or ‘impoverished’ favelados. Through
collaboration, knowledge exchange, and communication, Co-Creation as a knowledge project seeks
to directly disrupt this danger. In the more collaborative spirit of Co-Creation, the process of creating
together enables researchers, artists, and activists/stakeholders to work together to further advance
the agendas already set in motion through a new or modified series of actions that develop something
that otherwise would not be possible. The artistic and creative elements of Co-Creation are intended
to be the instrument that ‘levels’ differential voices or footings that systemic power structures
typically reinforce (see Chapter 1). Doing so can generate a respectful and mutually beneficial way of
advancing socially progressive agendas. In the Santa Marta case study, this resulted in a collective
reflection on Santa Marta from a diversity of perspectives – its challenges and potentiality. Only in a
few moments in its history have its leaders and activities been brought face-to-face, without tension,
to discuss local projects and dynamics. The process of Co-Creation broke some internal resistances
that enabled these discussions to happen. Moreover, the role switching between actors enabled a
renewal of views of the favela. Residents and leaders who live in a favela can reproduce the favela
based solely on their specific struggles and points of view, and thus lose the ability to account for a
diversity of actors and the complexity of demands. Artists, residents, leaders, and activists who
participated in the project experience Santa Marta a little more, opening views and potentials.

The artist-researcher-stakeholder triad poses an earnest, relationship-focused process for Co-

Creation. Who sets the agenda? Engaging with community partners, researchers must recognise that
this triadic relationship has several impacts on the possibilities of research. Any entry point into a
community opens up opportunities but closes others. In Santa Marta, the Co-Creation project was
delimited by working with Itamar and Eco. As such, the research team gained access to the people and
spaces familiar to this group, but the people who do not regularly engage with Eco were excluded.
There is a significant portion of the community that we did not reach and there are likely other Santa
Marta organisations with whom to work with on Co-Creation. One strategy for overcoming this can

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be snowballing from initial contacts to the wider community. Doing so requires time and care to
maintain a positive and productive relationship with those people from whom we snowball. This is a
seriously challenging endeavour for work that includes numerous researchers who predominantly live
and work in the Global North. Nor can we link up with one person just to get to another, which
effectively undermines the collaborative and collective spirit of Co-Creation. For researchers, the
agenda must be open to change based on the needs, interests, motivations, and passions of those
within a given context.

Relatedly, in practice how do Co-Creation participants envision their relationship to the people of a
project? Co-Creation requires researchers to be diverse in their interactions. In some instances,
researchers can lead whereas in others they can be participants. The ability to shift our roles and
interactions is always contingent upon the location, time available to people, language differences,
and so forth. How close or how far are the researchers and the place chosen for Co-Creation? In Santa
Marta, people are already engaged in the artistry and activism aligned in response to iniquitous
conditions. In this position, researchers must ask: What is our role here? What and how do we
contribute? Do we bring anything new to the table? Are we just incorporating these forms of
knowledge production in the academy (and in doing so are at risk of becoming colonisers ourselves)?
Are we (academic) reporters? Or are we trying to do something new with these groups, where our
presence has a positive impact on the artistry-activism already happening? In a context where there
is little organisation, such a project would look radically different. Our first task in Co-Creation, then,
is to begin to know a place, its people, their organisation, and their histories.

If Co-Creation is to be a successful knowledge project to and for the people for whom it claims to
represent, speak, and speak with, then it necessarily must openly reflect upon the relationships it
develops in the process of its unfolding. Consider that Itamar with Eco has been active in the fight
against urban marginalisation in Rio de Janeiro for more than 40 years: Who, then, is the ‘expert’ or
‘intellectual’ here? Listening is one of the most powerful things researchers can do. Too quickly
researchers can become complicit in the writing of the Other (Spivak, 1988; Ribeiro, 2019). Fine
suggested, like Spivak (1988) and Scott (1988), that rather than try to ‘know’ or ‘give voice’ researchers
should listen to the voices of those Othered, as themselves constructors and agents of knowledge. In
this reflective chapter, we aimed to listen and write together, a Global North researcher, a Global
South researcher, and an organic intellectual of the favela.

This reflective illustration, contextualisation, and working of hyphens compel us to constantly locate
our work within broader power formations as we consider the roles of those involved. In Brazil,
considerations assist in thinking through Valladares’s (2019) rhetorical question, on whose terms is
the favela (re)invented? In Co-Creation processes and products, asking this question is a necessity in
all cities and their margins.

References

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Banks, S. and Hart, A. (2018) Co-producing research: A community development approach, Bristol:
Policy Press.

Boal, A. (2006) The aesthetics of the oppressed (A. Jackson, Trans.), London, UK: Routledge.

Bourne, R. (2008) Lula of Brazil: The story so far, Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

Caldeira, T. and Adriano, S. (2014) 'Gênero continua a ser o campo de batalhas: juventude, produção
cultural e a reinvenção do espaço público em São Paulo, Revista USP, (102): 83–100.

Clift, B.C. and Andrews, D.L. (2012) ‘Living Lula's passion: The politics of Rio 2016’, in H.J. Lenskyi and
S. Wagg (eds) The Palgrave handbook of Olympic studies, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp
210–32.

Davis, M. (2006) Planet of slums, London, UK: Verso.

Dagnino, E. (2006) Dimensions of citizenship in contemporary Brazil. Fordham L. Rev., 75, 2469.

Ferrero, J.P., Natalucci, A. and Tatagiba, L. (eds) (2019) Socio-Political Dynamics within the Crisis of the
Left: Argentina and Brazil, London, UK: Rowman & Littlefield International.

Fine, M. (1994) ‘Working the hyphens: Reinventing self and other in qualitative research’, in N. Denzin
and Y.S. Lincoln (eds) Handbook of qualitative research, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp 70–82.

Freire, P. (2005) Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). New York, NY: Continuum.

Frenzel, F. (2016) Slumming it, London, UK: Zed Books.

Gaffney, C. (2010) Mega-events and socio-spatial dynamics in Rio de Janeiro, 1919-2016. Journal of
Latin American Geography, 7–29.

Gramsci, A. (2006) ‘Hegemony, intellectuals and the state’, in J. Story (ed) Cultural theory and popular
culture: A reader, University of Georgia Press, pp 85–91.

Instituto Brasileiro de Analises Sociais e Economicas (IBASE) (2019) iBase. Retrieved from:
https://ibase.br/pt/.

Mitchell, C., De Lange, N. and Moletsane, R. (2017) Participatory visual methodologies: Social change,
community and policy, London: Sage.

Mouffe, C. (2013) Agonistics. Thinking the world politically, London: Verso.

Scott, J.W. (1988) Deconstructing equality versus difference. Feminist Studies, 14(1): 32–50.

Spivak, G.C. (1988) ‘Can the subaltern speak?’, in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the
interpretation of culture, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, pp 280–316.

Pandolfi, D.C. and Grynszpan, M. (orgs). (2003) A favela fala: Depoimentos ao CPDOC, Rio de Janeiro:
Editora FGV.

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Perlman, J. (2009) Favela: Four decades of living on the edge in Rio de Janeiro, New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.

Ribeiro, D. (2019) Lugar de Fala. Pólen Produção Editorial LTDA.

Valladares, L.d.P. (2019) The invention of the favela (R.N. Anderson, Trans.), Chapel Hill, NC: University
of North Carolina Press.

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SIXTEEN

Artist-researcher collaborations in Co-Creation: Redesigning favela tourism around graffiti

Leandro ‘Tick’ Rodrigues and Christina Horvath

Introduction

As the previous chapters have demonstrated, each Co-Creation experience is unique. Project
outcomes and dynamics vary greatly from one project to the other depending on their origins, length,
the actors who initiated them and the interactions between the originators and other participants.
Workshops can be instigated by academics with expertise in research design, by artists familiar with
creative techniques or local actors knowledgeable about issues relevant to the community. Roles are,
however, rarely clear cut and several combinations are possible, including those of artist-researchers,
community researchers or community artists. This chapter explores an artist-driven Co-Creation
experience initiated by a graffiti artist from the Global South who is also an activist embedded in a
local community. This bottom-up, organic Co-Creation experience was supported by a group of
researchers from a Global North university and the analysis presented in this chapter has been
produced collaboratively by the artist and one of the researchers. This close collaboration between
artist and researchers and Global South and Global North participants presented the two authors with
multiple opportunities to observe how trust-based relationships are developed between participants
of different backgrounds and reflect on the role of the artist as the project initiator, as well as on the
researchers’ contribution to both the creative process and the knowledge production.

The initiative took place in the Rio de Janeiro favela of Tabajaras & Cabritos in July–August 2019. It
was designed by graffiti artist Leandro Rodrigues – aka Tick – in collaboration with four social science
researchers from the University of Bath and a group of local residents and stakeholders. Its aim was
to establish a new walking tour focusing on street art in and around Tabajaras & Cabritos by extending
a previous favela tour discontinued in 2017 due to the increase of violence in the neighbourhood.
Including larger sections of the surrounding areas of Copacabana, Bairro Peixoto and Botafogo was
seen by Tick as a potential way to make the tour sustainable by allowing guides to avoid areas of risk
on days of armed conflict in the favela. The redesign also gave the opportunity to shift from the tour’s
previous focus on favela lifestyle, local history and political resistance to a new narrative about
creativity, socially engaged street art and collaboration between artists and communities living on the
margin. While this shift required painting additional murals in the area and renovating some of the
existing ones, it was seen by the participants as an opportunity to attract new audiences who normally
avoid favela tours, change visitors’ perceptions about disadvantaged communities, improve residents’
skills and self-esteem and create new synergies between them and the visitors.

Situated in the city’s South Zone between Copacabana and Botafogo, Tabajaras & Cabritos stretches
between the streets of Siqueira Campos and Real Grandeza. It is crossed by a wooded hiking path that
offers spectacular views on the city’s landmarks. The community’s 4,243 inhabitants (2010 census)
have access to electricity, running water, sanitation and healthcare. The arrival of the UPP (Pacifying
Police Unit) in 2010 brought about a period of relative peace and prosperity which contributed to

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urban growth, gentrification and rising property prices (Almeida, 2014). A study undertaken in 2012
by Rio de Janeiro-based business management consultant SEBRAE (Brazilian Support Service to Micro
and Small Entrepreneurs in Rio de Janeiro) exposed the favela’s potential for alternative forms of
tourism including ecotourism, cyclotourism, and community-based, cultural and adventure tourism
(Sampaio Correia et al, 2013). It also highlighted that 99% of the residents were favourable to receiving
visitors and tourists in the community (Sampaio Correia et al, 2013: 58). The start-up Tabritours,
launched in 2012 by certified guide Gilmar Lopes, exploited the opportunities created by the 2014
Football World Cup and the 2016 Olympic games to employ up to 220 residents during these large
events. It was, however, discontinued in 2017 after the Olympics were over and the security issues
returned (Interview Gilmar Lopes, 2019).

Tick, who initiated the workshop, had been working with Tabritours previously. He was also familiar
with Co-Creation methods since he was involved in a previous Co-Creation initiative in the favela of
Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro, in the summer of 2018 (see Chapters 4, 5 and 15). The communication
between Tick and the group of four researchers from Bath was facilitated by the fact that one member
of the team was a graffiti writer. After about one year of preparatory planning, Tick invited the
researchers along with local stakeholders and members from the community to contribute to the
collaborative design of an open-air street art gallery and a walking tour in his neighbourhood. The
participants agreed on using Co-Creation to develop a shared understanding of local challenges and
opportunities which would underpin the tour’s narrative. Co-Creation was selected for its potential to
make unheard voices emerge and to combine practice-based knowledge that exists within the
community with scholarly understandings of sustainable and ethical tourism developed by the
researchers. It was anticipated that further reciprocal benefits of using this methodology would
include opportunities to test Co-Creation in a context of urban disadvantage and examine its potential
to promote an exchange between epistemologies of the Global South and North.

Co-Creation aims to create a safe environment in which all participants commit to respect each other
and recognize and mitigate power inequalities existing within the group. In this case, such inequalities
included diverging levels of artistic skills, unequal access to financial resources (the initiative used EU
funding from the Co-Creation project) and the uneven distribution of academic and community-based
knowledge. At the start of the six-week experiment, focusing on beginning the redesign, participants
defined Co-Creation as a methodology seeking to counter stereotypes, promoting equality, creativity
and new synergies between participants and encouraging alternative visions taking into account
stakeholders’ perceptions. The group agreed that to be successful, the workshop should help them
develop a shared vision for the tour, provide participants with new skills and opportunities for self-
expression, and increase community members’ networks.

Favela tourism in Rio de Janeiro

Tourism in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas started in the 1990s and has grown into an industry attracting
approximately 40,000 visitors annually (Freire-Medeiros, 2013). In recent years, a wealth of literature
has addressed tours that exploit outsiders’ curiosity about disadvantaged urban areas in Brazil and
elsewhere. Such tours have been referred to as ‘slum tourism’, ‘social tours’, ‘reality tours’, ‘cultural
tourism’, ‘poverty tourism’ and ‘poorism’ (Burgold and Rolfes, 2013). Some suggest that tourists’ main

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motivation for participating in such walks is either a morbid curiosity for poverty or philanthropy.
However, Carter (2017) and Dovey and King (2012) have demonstrated that many visitors are less
attracted by poverty than by picturesque vernacular architecture, utopic communities and village-like
social links. They often see favelas as inventive, creative and resilient communities engaged in a
struggle for self-liberation (Carter, 2017: 424). Such qualities particularly appeal to tourists alienated
by neoliberalism, solitude, rationalism or lack of agency in the Global North (Carter, 2017: 424).
According to Burgold and Rolfes (2013: 166), most favela tours are marketed as ‘real and ‘authentic’
and, similar to ecotourism or volunteer tourism, they seek to anticipate and counter tourists’ moral
doubts by projecting themselves ‘as a more desirable alternative to usual programmes of mass
tourism […] characterised by sameness, crudeness’ (170).

Ethical preoccupations are core to most research focusing on favela tours. Scholars often flag up either
their morally dubious aspects such as voyeurism, intrusion into the residents’ privacy and dignity,
exploitation, and markedly asymmetrical relationships between the tourists and the residents, or their
positive, philanthropic goals. Most research suggests that, to be ethical and mutually beneficial for
visitors and host communities, tours have to avoid excessive and disrespectful photography and zoo-
like sightseeing, promote agency, contribute to develop residents’ self-esteem and networks,
generate material benefits for residents, local entrepreneurs and social projects and challenge
predominantly negative perceptions (dangerous, stagnant, dirty, criminal, lacking hygiene and
education) by replacing these with positive attributes (entrepreneurship, initiative, activity, hope,
education, culture, creativity and community). Research has also shown that most tours actually do
improve tourists' opinions (Burgold and Rolfes, 2013: 167) even if language barriers and asymmetries
in income, social status and mobility often impede genuine exchange between hosts and visitors.

While most authors assume that community-based tourism provides ‘a meaningful and
transformative experience that is rewarding for both tourists and local communities’, Dürr and Jaffe
(2012) also show that ‘cultural productions, from mural to photo exhibitions to movies and socio-
religious innovations’ allow residents to take action themselves, using tourism as a means to advance
their goals by representing and performing a more favourable image to a global audience’ (2012: 115–
6). Therefore, they consider that residents’ involvement in organising and guiding tours, setting up
museums, and interacting with tourists as artists or artisans provides an opening for more nuanced
alternative representations which use global connections to achieve local change (2012: 119).

In her analysis of street art in relation to tourism, Klein (2016, 2018) noted that the patrimonialisation
of street art and its increasing incorporation into processes of urban regeneration since the mid-2000s
resulted in the emergence of initiatives seeking to attract tourists to urban areas prominent in street
art production. Graffiti tours call into question conventional oppositions between ordinary and
extraordinary and touristic and non-touristic places. They propose multidimensional cultural
experiences to satisfy the needs of an emerging market for more differentiated goods and services.
Similar to favela tours, street art tourism claims to offer a ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ experience to those
who seek to discover ‘within a controlled and secure framework’ (Klein, 2018: 60) an originally
criminalized practice born and located in conflicted or segregated neighbourhoods. However, unlike
favela tours that tend to be community-based and mainly attract tourists from other countries or
regions, street art tours are generally offered as private products destined for young urban visitors,
both foreign and local (Klein, 2018: 65–66). Thus, street art tourism has a stronger potential to attract

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local tourists who generally shun favela destinations and also a better capacity to revalorize urban
areas, change perceptions, divert attention from the extraordinary to the everyday, and create spaces
of participation, conviviality and dialogue.

From the researchers’ initial review of favela tourism in Rio, it was found that while there is substantial
research on tourism in Rocinha and Santa Marta, tours in other South-Zone favelas such as Tabajaras
& Cabritos constitute an under-researched area. To build an understanding of the South-Zone tours
currently on offer and their narratives, we undertook a series of participant observations on walks run
by community-based guides in Santa Marta, Vidigal, Cantagalo and Babilônia. Most of these walking
tours had a general focus and promoted a historical approach, with the notable exception of the tour
in Babilônia that focused on hiking. Guides addressed the origins of the foundation, naming and
construction of each favela and emphasised the residents’ resistance to material difficulties and
political adversity. Visits by famous people (such as the Pope, Michael Jackson or Barack Obama) and
cultural products (films, videos featuring favelas) were also mentioned. The presence of crèches,
schools, NGOs, resident associations, sport and dance facilities and other social projects inside the
communities was equally highlighted. Guides indicated the best views but not all of them encouraged
tourists to buy local drinks, food or artefacts. Tours were presented as authentic experiences although
it was not always clearly explained how they contributed to the community. The presence of the UPP,
police pacification, political and security issues were mentioned sporadically and, in some cases,
visitors were warned from taking photographs in certain places.

While street art was visible in most favelas, it was rarely made prominent in the tours. In Cantagalo
and Santa Marta, murals representing residents carrying water or construction materials were used
as mere illustrations for local history but no attention was dedicated to their aesthetic qualities. In
Cantagalo and Vidigal, guides mentioned some local artists and initiatives aiming to establish open-air
galleries. However, tours generally failed to discuss how these initiatives related to street art culture
in Rio de Janeiro and none of them provided information about the techniques and styles used by the
artists. In contrast, a feminist-themed street art tour observed in the city centre around Olympic
Avenue provided some biographic data about female artists and a more coherent narrative about their
difficulties and messages. Yet contextual information about the city’s graffiti scene and artists’
distinctive aesthetics were not included in this tour either.

The literature review and the observations allowed the artist and the researchers to develop an in-
depth understanding of the niche market on which the tour designed by Tick intended to focus.
Developed at the intersection of community-based tourism and street art tourism, the tour in
Tabajaras & Cabritos could tap into local guides’ knowledge of the community including local history,
social projects and lifestyle while also providing information about street art’s aesthetic evolution,
role and day-to-day functioning in Rio’s South Zone and its impact on favela populations. This original
and authentic angle appeared to have a strong potential to attract a diverse tourist population
including local, Brazilian and foreign visitors, thereby offering multiple opportunities to confront and
challenge stereotypes about favelas.

Leandro Tick and socially engaged street art in Rio de Janeiro

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This section will introduce socially engaged graffiti artist Leandro Tick (Figures 16.1 and 16.2). Tick was
born in the Northeast of Brazil and arrived in Tabajaras & Cabritos in 1992 at the age of eight. A self-
taught artist, he started using spray paint around the age of 13 and completed his first wall in 2001 at
the age of 17. He first began to produce murals in the neighbourhood using magazines and relied on
online media and contact with other artists to improve his technique. He has progressively developed
a figurative style, using bright colours and natural elements including birds, plants, flowers and trees.
Today he is known for his photographic portraits, distinctive cityscapes representing symbolic rather
than realistic favelas, as well as for his interest in collaborative, participatory projects.

[INSERT Figures 16.1 and 16.2 near here]

Street art gained prominence in the context of urban marginality in New York in the 1960s and 1970s
and spread rapidly across the world as an expression of marginalised urban youth (Klein, 2018: 57). In
Brazil, artists have used it as a coping mechanism for the long-lasting challenges of poverty, inequality,
and violence (Bates 2017, Manco et al, 2005). In 2009, the year in which Brazil won the bid for the
Olympic Games, the government decriminalized graffiti on buildings produced with the owners’
consent. According to Bates, this law reinforced the demarcation between furtive tagging (pichação)
and street art (grafite), the first one engaged in the reproduction of the artists’ signatures in a cryptic
style, the latter interested in developing a more complex aesthetics with a message. Vital da Cunha
(2016: 56) suggests that public, either state or municipal, support for legal graffiti in the run-up to the
2014 and 2016 mega events was part of a broader strategy aiming to improve the city’s image after
decades of urban violence (see also Soares, 1996; Machado da Silva, 2008) and re-signify Rio de Janeiro
as a ‘beautiful, lush, harmonious city’ drawing on previous stereotypes of the beautiful, sensual, and
relaxed ‘Carioca way of being’ (Vital da Cunha, 2016: 55). The legalisation, however, has also allowed
artists to voice criticism toward social segregation, misgovernment, forced removals, aggressive
policing and the assassination of city councillor Marielle Franco in 2018.

According to Vilas Boas, street artists can develop participatory ways of inking and occupying public
space (2015: 181) thereby activating various concepts of the city as a place of encounter, memory,
and artistic and cultural activism. Imas (2014) also notes that favela painting presents a ‘discourse of
social change and of engagement that invites co-participation and co-creation in order to improve the
quality of life of favelas from within’ (np). Tick’s engagement with the community in Tabajaras &
Cabritos is a good example of this. He has developed strong links with his neighbourhood by painting
walls both inside Tabajaras & Cabritos and in the surrounding areas. He has collaborated with local
businesses, NGOs and institutions, for example by creating scenery for theatre company Abraço da
Paz (Kiss of Peace) in 2014 and by painting a mural in the João Barros Barreto family clinic in 2019.

Tick has been exploring various avenues as an artist, teacher, neighbourhood activist, and event
organiser. He has been offering arts workshops to children aged 12–17, initially in Tabajaras & Cabritos
and later also in Duque de Caxias with the NGO Ojubá Axé. In 2006, he brought together over 40 artists
for a first encounter entitled ‘Graffiti in the favela’ in which residents were also invited to participate.
He collaborated with the Green Star Movement from the USA, participated in the collective exhibit of

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the group Eixo Rio and hosted several large-scale graffiti encounters, including successive editions of
‘Artitude’ in 2006, 2008, 2015 and 2018.

In 2007, he co-founded the social project CALLE to attract volunteers to Tabajaras & Cabritos. CALLE,
which welcomed volunteers from all over the world and offered art and graffiti courses as well as
English, Spanish, yoga, theatre and meditation classes to about 50 young people aged 8–18. Tick was
also actively involved in ‘Viva Bairro’, a cultural project which started in 2015 and sought to identify
and involve multiple stakeholders in changing perceptions and improving the environment. In
Tabajaras & Cabritos, the project’s main objective was to integrate existing cultural and environmental
initiatives such as community gardening, environmental education, graffiti classes, the training of
young local tourist guides and the signalization and maintenance of tourist trails. Due to worsening
insecurity, the end of the project funding and the departure of some core members, many of these
activities came to a halt in 2017. Tick, however, remains confident that a street-art-focused walking
tour can be made sustainable and would help residents to develop agency, skills and networks. He
believes that as places of creativity where an important part of the origins of Rio de Janeiro’s culture,
favelas will always attract and fascinate visitors. He seeks to promote a form of community-based
tourism that would be able to channel this fascination towards equal and mutually beneficial
encounters between communities and visitors.

Co-Creating an open-air gallery and a street art tour in Tabajaras & Cabritos

Dürr and Jaffe (2012) suggested that community-based tours engaging with globally and nationally
circulating spatial imaginaries can draw ‘on positive images of local cultural achievements […] to
combat the stigma of poverty, violence and crime’ (2012: 120). Street art plays a prominent role in
performing cultural resilience since it simultaneously provides evidence for creativity and local culture,
represents collective memory, strengthens resilience and networks of solidarity, and contributes to
the residents’ self-esteem and wellbeing. The research in Tabajaras-Cabritos aimed to capture the
interplay between the artist, stakeholders and residents by observing three events: a stakeholder
consultation meeting, a collective painting and a walking tour designed by Leandro Tick.

The stakeholder meeting took place at the João Barros Barreto family clinic (Figure 16.3). Tick invited
the four researchers and a mixed group of nine residents and stakeholders to involve them in the
inception of a walking tour. The stakeholders were social workers, NGO members, and professionals
working in tourism, health care, sport and education. The vice-president of the Residents Association
and a graffiti artist from Duque de Caxias also joined the meeting. Several participants cumulated
different roles or had previously contributed to similar projects in other favelas. The meeting was
chaired by the artist who briefly introduced the two interconnected aims of his initiative: transforming
the neighbourhood into an open-air urban art gallery relevant to both local and international
audiences and develop a sustainable walking tour in Tabajaras & Cabritos, Copacabana, Bairro Peixoto
and Botafogo with local guides telling the story of the area through street art.

[INSERT Figure 16.3 near here]

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Participants were invited to make suggestions about the project’s aims, content and methods. The
most important goals emerging from the discussion concerned the involvement of vulnerable young
people in collaborative networks and the destigmatisation of the favela. Including teenage residents
in creative collaborations was recommended by a health professional as a way to counter tendencies
of self-harm among local youths. The founder of an educational NGO saw attracting foreign tourists
and changing their preconceptions about favelas as an effective way to act on the perception of
Brazilians at the same time.

Participants suggested including art, culture, creativity, gastronomy and social projects into the tour.
They recommended strategies successfully tested in other favelas such as involving local leaders and
social projects, constructing networks of solidarity, organising cultural events and a grill party focusing
on collective memory. The latter suggestion was accepted as a means to raise residents’ awareness
about the project and involve them in selecting themes for the open-air gallery. The invited graffiti
artist, Carlos Bobi, talked about the pros and cons of sponsorship and shared his experience of
organising the largest charitable graffiti painting in Latin America. The annual event ‘Meeting of
Favela’ requires that participating artists engage with local residents and discuss their designs with
them in order to obtain their permission to paint. Attracting prominent visitors, foreigners and the
press was suggested as a way to avoid the cancellation of collective painting by the police. Finally,
participants agreed on meeting on the following Sunday for a grill party followed by the collective
painting of a mural.

The Sunday event brought together the artist, the researchers, and some of the residents and
stakeholders. The painting was led by Tick in collaboration with one of the researchers who is also a
graffiti writer. Since the order of the painting and the barbecue was reversed due to logistic reasons,
the theme and the design of the painting were improvised rather than discussed and set collectively.
The participants painted the word Co-Criação (‘Co-Creation’ in Portugese) on a geometrical
background (Figure 16.4). This simple design allowed even beginners to participate in the colouring.
Once the design was completed, the two artists drew the contours and all participants signed their
names. At the end, Tick painted a broken guitar and the words ‘#Pressaõvive’. This was to
commemorate Alessandre Duarte, known as Pressaõ, the director of the local samba school, who was
killed in a shooting on 17 July 2019. The painting was followed by a barbecue where the participants
continued their discussions involving other residents.

[INSERT Figure 16.4 near here]

A week later Tick invited the group of researchers to test the two-hour walking tour he had designed
and to comment on it (Figure 16.5). The tour departed from Copacabana, crossed Tunnel Velho where
the group entered Tabajaras & Cabritos on the Botafogo side through the area known as Villa Rica.
Participants enjoyed the view on the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas and stopped at several murals on the
way. Finally, they crossed the centre of the favela where most restaurants and businesses are located

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and returned to the formal city on Siqueira Campos Street. The tour focused on street art both inside
and around the favela and provided explanations about facades and murals created by a variety of
artists. It evoked collaborations between various artists as well as occasional sponsorship by local
business owners in exchange for advertisement. Tick talked about the code of conduct of the artists,
the maintenance of open-air artwork and the dynamics of working with the community. The urban
development of Tabajaras & Cabritos before, during and after the Olympic Games was equally
addressed and some social projects were briefly mentioned. The tour visited several murals painted
by Tick himself, including portraits of residents, cityscapes and designs created for institutions and
businesses.

[INSERT Figure 16.5 near here]

After the walk, the researchers provided Tick with their feedback on the tour. They found the
combination of the community focus and street art authentic and arguably distinct from all the tours
previously observed. Nonetheless, they noted that compared to other walks, Tick’s tour was less
politically engaged and an overarching narrative was missing. They recommended including more
background information about the favela context as well as the history of street art in Rio de Janeiro
with particular focus on prominent artists’ styles, aims and political messages. The development of
two versions of the same tour, the one diving more in-depth into street art techniques and history
and the other providing more details about street art’s connection with the favela and its social
projects, was also suggested.

Some of the feedback was concerned with organisational and security issues such as keeping the
group together, indicating the itinerary and the length of the walk in advance, providing information
about the level of difficulty, and guidelines on security. Other comments confronted the artist with
the expectations of the stakeholders who wanted gastronomy and social projects to be emphasised
in the tour. Based on the outcomes of both the stakeholder consultation and the literature review,
the researchers recommended that Tick increase the benefits for the community by including a break
in a bar or restaurant, encouraging the consumption of food or drinks in the community, and
advertising services available in Tabajaras such as the mountain trail or a samba or martial art
experience. They also advised facilitating spontaneous encounters between visitors and residents
through visits to local institutions and social projects when security permits.

Outcomes of the Co-Creation initiative and lessons learnt

The final section will attempt to assess how Co-Creation worked in this particular case study and to
draw some broader conclusions about the role of artist(s), researcher(s) and community participant(s)
in Co-Creation projects.

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As a socially engaged street artist, Tick was the driving force behind this particular Co-Creation
initiative. From the start, he was convinced about graffiti’s potential to integrate different viewpoints,
record the community’s history and memories and promote fair exchanges of knowledge. As a
member of the community, he was familiar with key challenges including insecurity, stigmatisation,
isolation and the lack of state and municipal support for community-based art projects. Known in
Tabajaras as an independent agent with integrity and authenticity, he was able to successfully mediate
between the researchers and the community and use his longstanding networks to involve residents
and stakeholders with relevant complementary experience in the dialogue. His participation in
previous attempts to develop sustainable community-based tourism also facilitated the exchange
between academic and vernacular ways of knowledge production. Due to his familiarity with artistic
and pedagogic techniques and his experience of working with his students and other artists, Tick knew
how to involve non-artists in the collaborative painting of a mural. Moreover, the involvement of
communities in identifying locally relevant themes and the collaborative elaboration of designs were
already part of his methodology aiming to promote a positive vision about being a citizen, valuing local
history and caring about the place where people live.

Although Tick approved the Co-Creation ethos and had an in-depth understanding of it, this was not
always sufficient to keep the process fully in line with the Co-Creation principles. Despite careful
planning, the process often took unexpected turns and unfolded in unpredictable ways due to
unforeseen circumstances. Thus, the collective painting was preceded by only one consultation
meeting with stakeholders which some key local actors (for example the leader of the environmental
education project) were not able to attend. Only the stakeholders residing in Tabajaras took part in
the subsequent painting and this was not preceded by collective decision-making about the theme
and the design. Participants acquired some basic painting skills during the event, experienced feelings
of pride and ownership, broadened their networks, engaged in discussion with the researchers and
each other and contributed to shaping the street art tour with their comments. However, they did not
become equal partners in the creative process which remained under the artist’s control. This was
particularly perceptible when Tick spontaneously added the symbol of the broken guitar to the
collectively painted work, turning it into a commemorative wall with a political message relevant to
the community.

The experience has also revealed that, while Co-Creation has the potential to enable communities to
initiate positive change in their neighbourhoods and develop agency, the process itself is dependent
on a number of external factors which cannot be fully controlled by them. It exposed that the time,
effort, involvement, dedication, professionalism, and goodwill local actors invest in the process is not
always sufficient to fight the problems of insecurity and lack of political support and funding which
can affect and undermine the process. Due to the lack of government support for arts-based
community projects in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, many residents have lost their faith in state-funded
initiatives and feel abandoned. The foreign research funding made available for this case study could
only temporarily alleviate the general lack of resources for Co-Creation projects in Tabajaras &
Cabritos.

This leads to a reflection about the contribution of the researchers to the Co-Creation process. While
the researchers relied on Tick’s network to access the community and benefitted from his technical
aptitude, dedication and leadership throughout the process, they contributed to the project with

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funding for honoraria, paint and consumables, their experience of academic knowledge production
and access to international channels of dissemination. The outcomes of the literature review and
participant observation enabled the researchers to critically assess the artist’s methods and tour draft
and provide him with constructive feedback. Through close collaboration with the artist, they exposed
him to different methodologies and ways of knowledge production. Their paper presentations and
publications will continue to contribute to the artist’s international renown beyond the lifetime of the
project. The mural painted with the researchers’ support and collaboration has become part of the
open-air gallery. We can conclude that the artist-researcher collaboration was ethical and mutually
beneficial overall and the underlying power relations were balanced.

Although this six-week experiment did not fully comply with the Co-Creation principles at all times, it
contributed to raising the artist’s and stakeholders’ awareness of ethical issues about community-
based tourism, the potential of Co-Creation methodologies and the challenges and possibilities of a
street art tour. The tour drafted by Tick was the most Co-Creative outcome of the research insofar as
it was shaped by expectations voiced by stakeholders, the artist’s street-art-specific knowledge and
the researchers’ suggestions based on the literature review and participant observation. This
collaboration could constitute the first stage of a longer process leading to the consolidation of the
street art tour through further Co-Creation events aimed at eliciting feedback from the stakeholders
and residents, testing the tour’s ability to attract tourists and impact on their views and measuring its
impact on the community.

Finally, it is worth reflecting on what makes Co-Creation initiatives successful in general and how they
differ from other forms of artist-driven initiatives involving communities. In this particular case study,
the Co-Creation was based on a close collaboration between the artist and the researchers which
evolved progressively over one year through online correspondence, face-to-face encounters,
collaborative work, discussions, and shared social experience. Although the artist had participated in
partnerships based on principles similar to Co-Creation’s, these projects did not involve researchers.
The contribution of researchers enabled Tick to raise his awareness of the challenges and risks
involved in making his street art tour community-based and ethical. The academic research that
accompanied and supported the process complemented his practice-based, instinctive understanding
of the benefits of tourism for the community. However, this close collaboration between the
researchers and the artist may not be necessary in the case of researchers who are also practicing
artists or of socially engaged artists familiar with academic research methods. The initiative also
revealed that roles such as ‘artist’, ‘researcher’, ‘community member’ and ‘stakeholder’ are rarely
clear cut, Tick being an artist, a community member and a local stakeholder at the same time was a
good example of that. Further research would be needed to investigate through a range of different
case studies whether the artist’s prominence in the elaboration of the collective artistic outcome
observed in this case study is a general rule for all artist-initiated Co-Creation workshops. This could
also shed light on the importance of the quality of the Co-Created artwork or artefact compared to its
contribution to community wellbeing and collaborative knowledge production.

The authors would like to thank all participants of the Co-Creation workshop in Tabajaras & Cabritos
for their time, contribution and comments.

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Bates, B. R. (2017) ‘Participatory Graffiti as Invitational Rhetoric: The Case of O Machismo’,

Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, 18:1, 64–72.

Burgold, J. and Rolfes, M. (2013) ‘Of voyeuristic safari tours and responsible tourism with
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Carter, C. L. (2017) ‘Utopia and the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro’, Journal of Literature and Art Studies,
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Dovey, K. and King, R. (2012) ‘Informal Urbanism and the Taste for Slums’, Tourism Geographies,
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Dürr, E. and Jaffe, R. (2012) Theorizing Slum Tourism: Performing, Negotiating and Transforming
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Freire-Medeiros, B. (2013). Touring poverty, New York: Routledge.

Imas, M. J. (2014) Favela Painting: Building community, social change and emancipation through an
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painting/ [retrieved on 07 June 2019].

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Klein, R. (2018), ‘La ciudad y el turismo. Experiencias desde la gestión del street art’, Sociologia:
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Machado da Silva, L.A. (2008) Vida sob cerco: violência e rotina nas favelas do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de
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SEVENTEEN

Capturing the impact of Co-Creation: Co-Creating poetry and street art in Iztapalapa, Mexico City

Joanne Davies, Eliana Osorio-Saez, Andres Sandoval-Hernández and Christina Horvath

Introduction

Various chapters of this book have argued that Co-Creation, as an arts-based knowledge practice,
helps improve participants’ skills, well-being, social capital, self-esteem and resilience and strengthens
community cohesion while also addressing stigmatisation attached to disadvantaged urban areas. This
chapter proposes a reflection on whether and how these benefits can be measured.

Evidencing knowledge and transformative change resulting from Co-Creative projects can be
challenging for a number of reasons. Arts-based projects tend to produce outcomes which are either
intangible (such as shared knowledge, experience or understanding) or creative (such as collective
paintings or literary works). While the first type of outcome can be assessed by measuring their
transformative impact on behaviour, the second type can only be evaluated using aesthetic criteria
which may not be able to take into account the experience produced through the creative process.
Moreover, measuring transformative change resulting from Co-Creation projects currently constitutes
an under-researched area. Scholarly research has so far mainly focused on impacts emerging from
urban regeneration projects (Matarasso, 2009; Evans, 2005) or educational projects (Forrest-Bank et
al, 2016; Michels and Steyaert, 2017; Anderson, 2009). Recent research in these areas has drawn
attention to the tensions between short-term quantitative approaches and longer-term qualitative
approaches (Matarasso, 2009) and identified indicators likely to demonstrate social transformation
such as a decrease in criminal or antisocial behaviour, a positive shift in reputation attached to a place
or group of people or increase in volunteering, public–private-voluntary sector partnerships,
educational attainment, individual confidence and aspiration (Evans, 2005: 14–15). Besides, the quasi-
experimental design has proven successful in evidencing arts projects’ positive effect not only on
individuals (Forrest-Bank et al, 2016) but also on families, larger groups (Michels and Steyaert, 2017),
neighbourhoods and even entire cities (Anderson, 2009).

In line with these findings, this chapter seeks to test the efficiency of a quasi-experimental mixed-
methods approach to evidence Co-Creation’s impact and to advance our understanding of knowledge
production processes within Co-Creation. Quasi-experimental designs generally require the
manipulation of an independent variable using non-equivalent groups, pre-test, post-test, and
interrupted time-series designs (Campbell and Stanley, 2015). To achieve this, the authors recruited
two non-equivalent groups of participants from two lower-secondary schools in the neighbourhood
of Iztapalapa, in Mexico City. The groups were involved in a creative poetry writing workshop which
resulted in a collective volume, the painting of a mural illustrating the poems and a public poetry
reading event. Iztapalapa was selected to be the setting of the workshop for being one of the city’s
most marginalised districts (Mier y Terán et al, 2012) with high levels of violence, unemployment,
irregular housing, water scarcity and transportation deficiencies (Vergara, 2009). As a Global South
city with striking inequalities in access to culture, education, art (La Silla Rota, 2016) and green spaces

203
(Alvarez, 2012), Mexico City seemed an ideal testing ground for Co-Creation. In addition, the city has
a longstanding legacy of arts-based approaches reaching back to the 1920s Muralist movement. For
nearly a century, governmental and municipal institutions have been promoting socially engaged art
at the neighbourhood level in the city by sponsoring both bottom-up and top-down projects using
public art to spread social and political messages (Folgarait, 2017; La Silla Rota, 2016).

The chapter will first set out the collaborative design of the case study before discussing how the Co-
Creation workshop impacted the participants, their families and the neighbourhood. The authors will
then turn to the assessment of the case study including the evaluation of the quasi-experimental
approach to evidence this impact. The chapter will end with a reflection on processes of knowledge
production within Co-Creation and some recommendations about how epistemologies from the
Global North and South could be combined to improve our understanding of how knowledge is shared
in Co-Creative ways.

Co-Creating a poetry workshop in Iztapalapa

This case study was initiated by an interdisciplinary group of researchers from the University of Bath,
England, composed of members from the Global North and South. The group organised several
stakeholder consultation meetings involving head teachers, teachers and non-academic staff from the
two selected lower-secondary schools in Iztapalapa, members of ‘Alas & Raíces’ [Wings & Roots] a
governmental organisation having a longstanding expertise of working with disadvantaged groups in
Mexico City using arts methods, a collective of four poets called ‘Centro Transdisciplinario
Poesía & Trayecto’ and a street artist, Oscar Román. The aims of these meetings were to carry out an
analysis of local needs based on the experience of the school staff and to tap into the partners’
respective expertise to develop a series of Co-Creative activities aligned with both the schools’ needs
and the ten Co-Creation principles advocated in this book. The first five of these principles reflect Co-
Creation’s inclusive ethos by encouraging participants to build strong, trust-based relationships,
commit to mutual respect and address issues related to traditional hierarchies. The other five
principles anticipate potential challenges and conflicts which might arise during the collaboration and
seek to provide practical guidelines throughout the process (see Chapter 1).

The design took as a starting point a model elaborated by the organisation Art from Ashes (AfA;
http://www.artfromashes.org/), which was modified through a collaborative process to align it with
the concept of Curricular Autonomy. Curricular Autonomy is understood as the principle that allows
each educational community to decide how to use a certain part of their school day to reinforce key
learning, explore other activities with pedagogical value or develop social impact projects (SEP, 2017).
Accordingly, workshop objectives were shaped to respond to specific issues identified by school staff,
as well as to incorporate methods and techniques that the artists had found effective in similar
contexts. A quasi-experimental design (Campbell and Stanley, 2015) was selected for the project’s
evaluation. The dependent or outcome variables were organised into four conceptual groups
corresponding to the four most pressing issues identified by the school staff: an aggressive/violent
school climate, disciplinary problems and low student participation in the classroom, students’ lack of
interest for community affairs and students’ disbelief in their own capacity to make changes in their
community.

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Two schools participated in the project: one acted as the treatment school and the other as a control
school. These roles were assigned randomly. All students at both schools were invited to take part in
the project on a voluntary basis. To approach students, the project team visited every classroom to
perform a brief poetry reading, explain what the project would involve and invite participants to
volunteer. This allowed the grouping of participants by their interest in poetry so that students from
different grades and ages could work in the same curricular space. All participating students were
given detailed project information in writing, as well as consent forms for their parents to sign.

First, participants from both schools answered a questionnaire with information about the dependent
variables, as well as background information about the schools, themselves and their families (pre-
test). Subsequently, the students at the treatment school participated in the Co-Creation workshops.
These consisted of three sessions of poetry writing over two consecutive days, guiding students
through creating first collective and then individual poems. In this framework, writing was used as a
tool for the students to develop their voices and perceptions of themselves as actors for positive
change in their neighbourhood. The collective production of texts allowed for some painful
experiences such as loss, abuse, abandonment by family members and sexual harassment to surface.
More optimistic feelings including hope, love and dreams about a better future, were also shared. The
mutual support between classmates and the encouragement provided by the poets were expressed
through smiles, pats and hugs, making the process emotionally charged.

The following week, the students at the treatment school took part in two street art sessions to create
a mural on one of the outside walls of their school, using imagery from their collective and individual
poems. This was followed by a public reading of their poems in front of the mural to which the whole
school, parents and the local community were invited. Both the mural and the public event allowed
the participants to share their poems with the community of teachers, parents and neighbours and
have their voices heard by all. During the reading, each student received a printed copy of a collective
volume of their poems entitled ‘Telesecundaria Iztabalabra: 50 poemas rabiosas de amor y ternura’
[Iztabalabra Highschool: 50 Enraged Poems of Love and Tenderness] which contained all four
collective and 47 individual poems produced during the workshop. Finally, the students at both the
treatment and the control schools answered the questionnaire for a second time (post-test). After
this, poetry workshops were also delivered in the control school to ensure that the students there also
benefitted from the experience.

The poetry and street art workshops were specifically designed to strengthen the integral
development of students. They privileged an approach to art as therapy rather than skills development
or a focus on artistic quality. Using poetry and street art as a means of expression, workshop
participants linked artistic production with their emotions both on a personal level and as part of a
community. As highlighted earlier, the project was designed to have a positive influence on the
selected four target areas (school climate, classroom discipline and student participation in the
classroom, student self-efficacy in community affairs and student participation in the
community/neighbourhood) in order to:

a) Promote greater respect and tolerance among young people from diverse cultures and
backgrounds (improve school climate);

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 b) Encourage young people’s participation in group settings (increase student participation in
the classroom);

c) Increase young people’s self-confidence to promote community participation (encourage

greater self-efficacy);

d) Promote greater respect for poetry and art and their power to change lives and communities
(increase community participation).

The impact of the project was expected to extend beyond the level of the school to the entire
community. Using creative writing as a process as well as a tool to describe the immediate
environment which can lead to a deeper knowledge of individual and collective identity, the poetry
workshops used the construction of metaphors and other stylistic elements to enable students to
express their reality from their own perspective in order to approach the micro-history of their
communities from a variety of points of view. In practical terms, outreach to the community was
sought through two activities promoting students’ civic self-efficacy: the public poetry reading and the
painting of the mural on the outside wall of the school.

Quasi-experimental design to measure the workshop’s impact

The quasi-experimental design for the Co-Creation project’s evaluation is depicted in Figure 17.1. The
first school, with 47 participating students (26 boys and 21 girls, aged 14–17), was randomly selected
to be the treatment school. The second school, with 33 participating students (12 boys and 21 girls,
aged 14–16), was chosen to be the control school.

As highlighted in the previous section, a questionnaire that collected information about the
dependent variables, as well as background information about the schools, the students and their
families, was administered twice in each school (pre- and post-test). In the treatment school, this was
administered before and after the Co-Creation activities whereas in the control school this was
administered both times before the activities took place. The purpose of doing so was to test for
differences in the outcome variables between the pre- and post-tests (that is, before and after the
project activities). If differences were found in both the treatment and control schools, then such
differences could not be related to the project, but if differences were found only in the treatment
school, then it could be suggested that these were related to the project.

Figure 17.1 - Flow of participants through each stage of the evaluation

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 Enrolment

Parental consent

(n=80)

Completed pre-test

(n=80)

Treatment School Control School

(n=47) (n=33)
Boys = 26 Boys = 12
Girls = 21 Girls = 21

Workshops

(n=46)

Completed post-test
Treatment Sch. (n=46)

Control sch. (n=31)

Workshops

(n=31)

Analysis

(n=77)

The questionnaire used items adapted from the International Civic and Citizenship Questionnaire
(ICCS) (Köhler et al, 2018), created by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational
Achievement (IEA) and applied in Mexico by the National Institute for the Evaluation of Education
(INEE) in 2016. The four main areas identified by school staff during the initial meetings as the most
pressing issues in their schools and communities were mapped to the contents of the ICCS background
questionnaire as shown in Table 17.1. The full version of the ICCS background questionnaire can be
found in the ICCS User Guide (Köhler et al, 2018).

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Table 17.1. Themes included in the questionnaire and issues identified in the school and community.

Issues identified in the school and community Concepts in ICCS

Discipline problems and lack of student Open classroom for discussion (7 items)
participation in the classroom

Aggressive/violent school climate School climate (7 items)

Students’ disbelief in their own capacity to Student self-efficacy (7 items)

makes changes in their community

Students’ lack of interest or concern for Civic participation (5 items)

community/neighbourhood affairs

In addition to the questionnaire, the research design also included a series of 13 qualitative interviews
with the head teacher, a classroom teacher and a non-academic staff member at each school, the two
staff members of Alas y Raíces, the four poets who led the poetry workshops and the street artist who
coordinated the school’s mural. The questionnaire data were analysed using SPSS (IBM, 2013), with t-
student tests used for comparisons. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis (Braun and
Clarke, 2006).

The following presentation of the results is centred around the four conceptual groupings used in the
questionnaire and contains information from the analysis of both the quantitative and qualitative
data.

Open climate for classroom discussion

A statistically significant change between the pre- and post-test responses of the treatment group was
found in one item within this grouping – that relating to how often students raise current political
topics for discussion in class. As can be seen from Table 17.2 and Figure 17.2, there is no statistically
significant difference between the pre and post-test of the control group, t (29) = - 1.72, p > 0.05. The
effect size (d = 0.17) is also small. There is however a statistically significant difference between the
pre- and post-test responses of the treatment group, t (44) = -2.74, p < 0.01. There is also a medium
effect size (d = 0.41). In other words, after participating in the workshop, the average student in the
treatment school reported raising political topics to be discussed in class with a higher frequency than
66% of the students before the intervention (see Coe, 2002 for a more detailed explanation of the
interpretation of effect sizes).

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Table 17.2. Results for treatment and control groups concerning how often students raise current
political topics for discussion in class.

pre- post-
N SD SD Diff t P d
test test

Treatment 44 2.9 1.3 3.5 1.1 0.6 -2.74 0.01 0.41

Control 29 2.4 1.4 2.6 1.4 0.2 -1.72 0.20 0.17

[INSERT Figure 17.2 near here]

Interviewees’ comments help to understand the improvements evidenced here:

Teacher 1: “During the first questionnaire, the students had many questions about the meaning of
spaces for discussion in the classroom […]. At the end of the project, there was recognition of these
terms and how they are practised because they lived these during the poetry workshops.”

Head teacher 2: “The spaces of creation generated an atmosphere to talk about many things that are
not normally talked about in the classroom.”

School climate

Statistically significant decreases between the pre- and post-test responses of the treatment group,
as well as between the treatment and control groups, were found for two of the questions within this
grouping. The results of the first, regarding students’ feelings of not fitting in at school, are presented
in Table 17.3 and in Figure 17.3, and the results of the second, related to students’ fear of being a
victim of bullying, in Table 17.4 and Figure 17.4.

As can be seen from Table 17.3, there is no statistically significant difference between the two
responses of the control group, t (29) = - 0.67, p > 0.05. The effect size (d = 0.12) is also small. In
contrast, there is a statistically significant difference in the pre- and post-test responses of the
treatment group, t (43) = -2.84, p < 0.01. There is in addition a medium effect size (d = 0.43). That is,
after participating in the workshop, the average student in the treatment school reported that they
do not fit in at school to a lesser extent than 66% of the students before the intervention.

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Table 17.3. Results for treatment and control groups concerning students feeling like they do not fit in
at school.

pre- post-
N test SD test SD Diff t P d

Treatment 43 3.1 1.6 2.5 1.4 -0.6 -2.84 0.01 -0.43

Control 29 2.7 1.3 2.5 1.3 -0.2 -0.67 0.51 -0.12

[INSERT Figure 17.3 near here]

As can be seen from Table 17.4, there is no statistically significant difference between the two
responses of the control group, t (31) = - 0.37, p > 0.05. The effect size (d = 0.07) is also very small.
Conversely, there is a statistically significant difference in the pre- and post-test responses of the
treatment group, t (45) = -1.91, p < 0.10. There is in addition a medium effect size (d = 0.28). In other
words, after participating in the workshop, the average student in the treatment school reported to
be less afraid of bullying than about 62% of the students before the intervention.

Table 17.4. Results for treatment and control groups concerning students’ fear of bullying at school.

pre- post-
N test SD test SD Diff t P d

Treatment 45 2.8 1.5 2.4 1.5 -0.4 -1.91 0.06 -0.28

Control 31 3.1 1.7 2.9 1.4 -0.1 -0.37 0.72 -0.07

[INSERT Figure 17.4 near here]

Comments from the interviewees reinforce the notion of a positive change in school climate:

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Poet 1 - “In the first activities, irreverent language and behaviour were used, because the space lent
itself to that, but when we questioned them (me as a facilitator and their fellow students), about their
choices – ‘why do you say this or that’? – this ensured they thought not only of what they wanted to
say but also of those around them listening.”

Head teacher 1 - “The project and especially the final event was a space where young people felt
confident in being and saying.”

Non-academic staff 1 - “They were celebrating together, saying ‘wow, that’s so great.’”

Student self-efficacy

A statistically significant increase between the pre- and post-test responses of the treatment group,
as well as between the treatment and control groups, was found for one question – that relating to
students' perceived self-efficacy concerning organising fellow students to make changes within their
school.

As can be seen from Table 17.5 and Figure 17.5, there is no statistically significant difference between
the two responses of the control group, t (30) = - 0.52, p > 0.05. The effect size (d = 0.09) is also very
small. In contrast, there is a statistically significant difference in the pre- and post-test responses of
the treatment group, t (43) = 2.26, p < 0.05. There is in addition a medium effect size (d = 0.34). That
is, after participating in the workshop, the average student in the treatment school reported to
perceive him or herself more able to organise other students to makes changes at school than about
62% of the students before the intervention.

Table 17.5. Results for treatment and control groups concerning perceived self-efficacy in organising
fellow students to make changes at school

pre- post-
N SD SD Diff t P D
test test

Treatment 43 3.5 1.2 4.0 1.1 0.5 2.26 0.03 0.34

Control 30 3.7 1.2 3.5 1.2 -0.1 -0.52 0.61 -0.09

[INSERT Figure 17.5 near here]

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Interviewees’ comments provide evidence of students’ increased capability to speak of and address
shared problems and overcome stigma together:

Poet 2 - "In the poems, they spoke of their community, their school and feelings, mainly of the
affection they were obviously asking for and of the social problems of their community and their need
to talk about it."

Teacher 2 - "What hurts was named; the difficulty of life in this community... Tears that had been held
back flowed. It is here that poetry helps to name pain, denounce it and heal it."

Poet 3 - "With some students, it was possible to redefine some forms of stigmatisation such as 'pinche
marihuano' [‘drughead loser’] and 'useless'. With poetry these were renamed, it was a way to leave
that stigma behind."

Civic participation

A statistically significant increase between the pre- and post-test responses of the treatment group,
as well as between the treatment and control groups, was found for one question – that relating to
students’ desire to contribute to an online forum discussing political and social issues.

As can be seen from Table 17.6 and Figure 17.6, there is no statistically significant difference between
the two responses of the control group, t (29) = - 1.36, p > 0.05. There is a medium effect size (d =
0.25). Conversely, there is a statistically significant difference in the pre- and post-test responses of
the treatment group, t (42) = -2.63, p < 0.01. There is in addition a medium effect size (d = 0.41). That
is, after participating in the workshop, the average student in the treatment school reported to be
more likely to contribute to an online political forum than about 66% of the students before the
intervention.

Table 17.6. Results for treatment and control groups concerning students’ desire to contribute to an
online forum discussing political and social issues.

pre- post-
N SD SD Diff t P d
test test

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 Treatment 42 3.5 1.2 4.0 1.0 0.5 -2.63 0.01 0.41

Control 29 3.0 1.4 3.3 1.3 0.3 -1.36 0.19 0.25

[INSERT Figure 17.6 near here]

Students’ strengthened desire to contribute to discussions on the topics that affect them and those
around them, is also evident from interviewee comments:

Head teacher 1 – “Once they participate in the workshops, students develop a series of skills
that gradually will become part of the school dynamics and hopefully of the family and the
community to which they belong... They see art as an alternative form of expression and a
tool to look for more opportunities, to express themselves and progress, to change the reality
in which they live.”

Overall, we can conclude that although this Co-Creation initiative was modest in its timeframe, it had
a positive and relatively significant impact on all four areas evaluated. With regards to the
questionnaire, while statistically significant improvements in the responses between the pre- and
post-test applications of the questionnaire were not consistent, they were found in at least one item
from each evaluated area. Moreover, these gains were only present in the treatment group, which
strengthens the evidence in attributing them to the Co-Creation project.

Assessing the Co-Creation process and the measurement tool

The following section will discuss the application of the Co-Creation principles throughout the project
and explore the efficiency of the assessment methods used to measure the poetry workshops’ impact.

The initiative in Iztapalapa was designed and carried out bearing in mind the ten Co-Creation principles
established in Chapter 1. Principle 10 (creative) was particularly prominent insofar as the activities
involved creative writing and painting. In line with principle 3 (ethical), academic ethics guidelines
were followed at all times and all artists involved in the project received honoraria. Principle 4 (shared
outcomes) was guiding the dissemination of the Co-Created poems through the mural painting, public
poetry reading and collectively published book. Principles 6 (embeddedness) and 7 (awareness) were
also respected since the project brought together a range of local actors (school staff, students and
artists) and relied on the initial stakeholder consultation meetings’ outcomes to pitch the workshop
on social issues relevant to the community. The three stages of the project (planning, execution and
evaluation) were also aligned with principle 2 that advocates mutual respect among participants.

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The design of the project, which involved the school staff, researchers, artists, and practitioners, was
accomplished in accordance with principles 8 and 9 suggesting that all participants should have their
say in the planning of the activities. The Co-Creation ethos also required the acknowledgement and
mitigation of the inequalities existing between partners. These included institutional hierarchies
within both Alas & Raíces and the team of researchers, the prominence of the epistemologies of the
North in the workshop and evaluation design as well as unequal access to funding and resources (for
example the poets’ honoraria were paid by Alas & Raíces while the other activities were co-sponsored
by the Mexican Ministry of Culture and the Co-Creation project). These power inequalities were
mitigated to some extent by recognising that each partner’s specific expertise was equally vital for the
project.

The creative stage of the project was affected by the partners’ initial decision that only the students
and the artists would participate in the creative activities. This division between active participants
and facilitators seemed to be necessary to enable peer-groups of teenagers from Iztapalapa to find
their own voices and express age- and place-related experience of suffering and rejoicing related to
the specific challenges of their local environment (Santos, 2014: 90–93). Nevertheless, this set-up
triggered a series of binary divisions between facilitators vs. participants, adults vs. teenagers and
researchers vs. researched, which could be considered contrary to principles 1 (equal footing) and 9
(active participation). While practitioners from Alas & Raíces were not present during the workshop
sessions, school staff and researchers acted as facilitators and data collectors and these roles excluded
them from active participation in the poetry writing and painting. Nonetheless, despite their non-
creative roles they participated in the sharing of strong emotions, affect and empathy, which were
instrumental to knowledge production and resulted in trust-based relationships (principle 5) not only
among the student participants but also between these and the adults present during the workshops
despite the short timeframe of the project and the divisions described above.

The assessment stage of the project was also underpinned by principle 8 (plurivocality). Although the
design of the assessment methods was led by the researchers from the Global North due to their
relevant expertise and prominence as the initiators of the project, all adult participants contributed
to the process via the initial stakeholder consultation and continuous commenting during and after
the creative activities. The choice of combining student questionnaires with unstructured interviews
with all partners was motivated by the desire to equalise the balance of power between all adult
participants. This format allowed for sharing ideas about the process, its benefits for those involved
and its possible shortcomings.

The quasi-experimental design proved an efficient method overall to evidence transformation in the
four targeted areas. It generated a set of data that could be used to fill the gap in the literature about
evidencing impact from Co-Creation projects but was also suited to underpin future reports and policy
briefs arguing for financial and policy support for Co-Creation activities. The mixed-method approach
successfully combined the measurement of behavioural change through quantitative research with
insight into the dynamics of the creative process provided by the qualitative research. Two important
areas, however, remained neglected throughout the evaluation process. The first one was the voices
of the teenagers mediated by their poems, the second one the embodied knowledge generated
through sharing the participants’ messages with the larger community. These shortcomings of the
evaluation shed light on a particularity of Co-Creation as a knowledge practice, namely that an

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important part of the knowledge sharing is mediated through the creative process and is therefore
inseparable from the participants’ bodily sensations, emotions and affects. In the final, concluding
section, we will discuss this in more detail with the aim of making some recommendations about how
these shortcomings could be overcome in future Co-Creation projects and how the two most
challenging areas could be given more prominence in the evaluation design.

Conclusions and recommendations for an increased focus on emerging voices

There were some important limitations to this study. The first one concerned the short timeframe of
the case study, which was developed over three months. Such a brief intervention could only generate
very modest transformation within the complex environment of the treatment school and the
community. The second limitation was related to the role of the researchers who did not actively
engage in the creative activities. Involving them more actively in poetry writing and graffiti painting
while simultaneously opening some aspects of the design and research processes to student
participants could have resulted in more fluid boundaries and less hierarchical relationships between
researchers and non-researchers and artists and non-artists. Finally, evaluating Co-Creation from the
perspective of the academic partners and the epistemologies of the North constituted a third
limitation. Even if the adopted evaluation design sought to engage with a wide range of actors and
stakeholders, the assessment privileged methods developed by scholarly epistemologies of the Global
North and was more concerned with the changes in student behaviour and perception than with
processes of knowledge production about neighbourhood disadvantage and creative outputs. These,
however, proved instrumental in building a shared understanding. Furthermore, while the interviews
took into account the voices of school staff, artists and academics involved at all stages of the project,
they neglected community’s (in particular parents’ and neighbours’) reactions to Co-Created
outcomes shared with them through the poetry reading and mural and did not sufficiently reflect the
perspective of student participants whose voices the Co-Creation process was meant to help emerge.

Some of these limitations could be considered as interesting opportunities for future research.
Another area to investigate further is the involvement of the epistemologies of the South in the
evaluation design. As the case study has revealed, participants’ experience of sexual abuse, insecurity,
abandonment and demands for love and respect were primarily expressed in a poetic form through
linguistic choices including metaphors, exaggerations and occasionally irreverent language. The
poems and their graphic illustration via the collectively painted mural did not need to be high-quality
artworks to provide insight into what it meant to be a teenager in Iztapalapa and mediate those
affects, passions, beliefs, faiths and values that Santos (2014) calls the ‘unsayable’. Epistemologies of
the North tend to either ignore creative outcomes or to concentrate exclusively on the message they
carry. Thus, even if they attempt to take the participants’ poetic claims into account, they are likely to
translate these into the neutral, objective and rational language of Global North science which would
inevitably dispossess the participants’ emerging voices of their passion, urgency, authenticity and
authority.

The workshop in Iztapalapa also revealed that social transformation generated by Co-Creation was
principally prompted by the powerful emotions felt by those who witnessed the students’ poems. To
develop a better understanding of such processes, future workshops should concentrate on embodied

215
ways of producing common understanding and the role that shared narratives of suffering and
rejoicing plays in the Co-Creation process. As Santos (2014) argues:

The epistemologies of the North have great difficulty in embracing the body in all its emotional
and affective density, without turning it into one more object of study. […] The epistemologies
of the South cannot accept the forgetting of the body because social struggles are not
processes that unfold from rational kits. They are complex bricolages in which reasoning and
arguments mix with emotions, sorrows and joys, loves and hatreds, festivity and mourning.
(2014: 20).

It is beyond the scope of this chapter to evaluate existing strategies that seek to close the gaps
between Northern and Southern epistemologies and to suggest new ones. However, the authors
believe that a dialogue between the two epistemologies is necessary to fully explore Co-Creation’s
potential to enact positive transformation based on shared understanding. We therefore recommend
incorporating recent approaches inspired by the epistemologies of the South such as ‘inter-knowledge
dialogues’ proposed by Dietz and Mateos Cortes (2013) or Esteva (2019), which seek to amalgamate
knowledge from the North and the South; strategies recommending ‘warming up reason’ or
‘corazonar’ (Santos, 2014: 97) which argue that knowledge can only turn into action on the condition
of being ‘soaked in emotions, affections, and feelings’ (Santos, 2014: 97); the ‘demonumentalising of
written knowledge’ (Santos, 2014: 188) which seeks to place different cosmopolitics on an equal
footing; ‘deep listening’ (Santos, 2014: 178), and ‘democratic negotiation and maintenance of
equivalent forms of knowledge in permanent tension’ (Lins Ribeiro, 2018: 77). Future Co-Creation
initiatives should incorporate some of these strategies not only in the design of their activities but also
in the ways they are evaluated.

The authors present their gratitude to all those who helped design and facilitate this Co-Creation
intervention in Iztapalapa: Dr Irene Macias and Professor Hugh Lauder (University of Bath); Karloz Atl,
Cynthia Franco, Canuto Roldán and Alain Y. Whitaker (Centro Transdiciplinario Poesía y Trayecto);
Oscar Román ; Anelvi Rivera Milflores and David Hernández Villeda (Alas y Raíces, Secretary of Culture
in Mexico), the staff and the students of Telesecundaria 52, as well as Director Irma Hernández.

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EIGHTEEN

Conclusion: What can we learn from Co-Creation, and what are the implications?

Christina Horvath and Juliet Carpenter

This volume has approached Co-Creation from a variety of different disciplinary angles (planning,
political theory, philosophy and literature to name but a few) reflecting the different positionalities of
researchers, activists, practitioners and artists from the Global North and South who have contributed
to the chapters. It has revealed the hybrid character of the positionalities and roles that actors can
hold and raised further questions about Co-Creation strategies. From their multiple viewpoints,
authors have explored the possible aims, outcomes and impacts of Co-Creation, the spaces in which
it unfolds and the complex power relations involved in the process. This concluding chapter will reflect
on their contributions, seeking to identify key themes and draw out comparisons between the
chapters in order to understand the evolving concept of Co-Creation. It will also highlight emerging
directions for further research and formulate some recommendations for activists, researchers,
artists, and practitioners interested in pursuing Co-Creation initiatives.

The aims of Co-Creation

The broad scope of areas covered in this volume ranging from community engagement, civil
participation and knowledge production to political activism and advocacy, have raised very different
and sometimes contradictory expectations in relation to Co-Creation. Some authors limited Co-
Creation’s aims to sparking dialogue between individuals, groups and institutions, building or engaging
communities, bringing art closer to the underprivileged, awakening civil imagination, and constructing
alternative understandings of neighbourhoods and their challenges. Others went further in their
claims for transformative change, suggesting that Co-Creation should seek to advance social justice
either indirectly, by disrupting traditional thinking and hierarchies and decolonising knowledge
production, or directly, by mediating between communities and power holders, balancing interests,
and advocating for alternative visions to be incorporated into future polices supported by the State.
These differences raise questions about whether Co-Creation is an actual method or rather an
umbrella concept under which very different aims can be brought together and indeed whether it has
to fulfil all these aims in every particular case in which it intervenes. While one aim of this volume was
to address the distinction between co-creation as citizen participation in public policies and Co-
Creation, reconceptualised as an arts-based knowledge process acting on the external image and self-
perception of disadvantaged communities to promote equality through creativity, the two sets of
meanings proved resistant to such separation. We can conclude that Co-Creation, although it may
pursue social justice and community engagement through different means, will always promote
agency, collaboration between participants and alternative visions taking into account different
perspectives rather than inertia, separation and status quo.

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Roles and positionalities

If Co-Creation as a knowledge practice retains some of the original meaning of co-creation as a political
process, we need to understand how the term’s underlying connotations affect its re-
conceptualisation as a collaboration between artists, researchers and communities. Does this imply
that, like co-creation, Co-Creation is possible without artists, researchers or communities?

Research and practice discussed in these chapters have shown the multiple advantages of involving
both artists and researchers in Co-Creation. Many artists are familiar with adopting roles of mediators
and facilitators, able to break down inhibitions and incentivise participation through tactics of play
and hands-on creativity. They can also play key roles in disrupting hierarchies and encouraging more
subtle, tangential and dialogic engagement with issues at stake as we have seen through the examples
of community film-making (Chapter 6), the artist-designed playful stakeholder consultation in Greater
Paris (Chapter 9), re-orientation of community tourism through street art (Chapter 16) and poetry
written by teenagers in Mexico City, directing community attention to issues of violence and abuse
(Chapter 17). Other chapters have highlighted the added value provided by academic partners who
brought not only information and research methods to Co-Creation projects but also material
resources, funding, symbolic legitimation and networks that can be key to making the process
sustainable, although the limitations of working with academic partners is also recognised in Chapter
12.

Some case studies have also revealed how fluid the boundaries can be between categories such as
‘artist’, ‘researcher’ or ‘stakeholder’. For instance, Itamar Silva, leader of Grupo ECO in Rio de Janeiro,
acted simultaneously as a resident, stakeholder, activist and community researcher in the Santa Marta
case study (Chapter 15). Laura Baron (Chapter 11) was able to lead the Street Beats Band project in
Vancouver thanks to her dual positionality as artist-researcher. Leandro Tick (Chapter 16) could
initiate the collaborative re-design of a community-based walking tour in Tabajaras and Cabritos
thanks to his experience and networks as an artist, activist and community member. Familiarity with
each other’s practices, languages, and methods of knowledge production allowed partners to
communicate and build bridges between different disciplines, viewpoints and modes of expression.
According to these examples, the overlaps between multiple roles are not only inevitable but a very
condition of knowledge sharing among multiple actors. Further research should explore how Co-
Creation processes are affected by the positionality of their initiators, whether they are artists,
researchers, or communities.

Power and the State in Co-Creation

One of the key underlying themes running through many of the chapters has been the issue of power,
and the inequalities that can undermine Co-Creation, for instance through the involvement of the
State or power imbalances between participants. A number of chapters draw on examples of
experiments between power holders (the State or municipality) and communities (for example
Chapters 8, 9 and 13) where Co-Creation is drawn on as a method for dialogue between the two.
However, although participants’ voices can be brought forth to be heard in novel ways through Co-
Creation, they are not necessarily listened to or acted upon by those in power. As a result, the artists

220
and researchers involved in the process run the risk of co-optation and may be discredited in the
process, perceived as agents of the State and betraying the trust of community partners.

This raises the question of whether Co-Creation necessarily needs to be a bottom-up process, and
whether State-sponsored Co-Creation can ever lead to truly inclusive practices of knowledge
production. When powerful State actors are implicated in the process, examples from this volume (for
example Chapter 9) suggest that their hegemonic position in the power hierarchy is likely to dominate
the overall relationship between actors. This ‘aestheticisation of public policy’ may omit the narratives
that those in authority chose to ignore. But this also raises questions over whether in fact, the process
of collecting narratives through artistic expression has a value in itself for those who tell their stories,
even if those in power are not listening. This ‘civil imagination’, drawing on an exercise in ‘artistic
citizenship’ (Chapter 3), makes visible the conditions of marginalisation by engaging actors in
collaborative art projects that support and enhance community well-being. This in itself has the
potential to create new knowledge and understanding, both within communities and also beyond,
which opens up possibilities to challenge traditional perspectives and narratives coming from those in
dominant positions.

Process and outcomes

In this volume, the working definition of Co-Creation involves the process of knowledge production
through collective creative endeavour. This raises issues about how knowledge production actually
takes place, and how communities can both feed in their situated knowledge through artistic creation
and also contribute to knowledge dissemination. The authors of Chapter 6 shed some light on this,
through a discussion of how young people actively performed an alternative sense of place as a
reaction to their local stigmatised community spaces, in highly affective ways. Their Co-Creative
project aimed to reconfigure voice, the subject, agency and embodiment, to enable young people to
tell their story and (re)create the narrative about their experiences of living in a marginalised
neighbourhood. Project participants used a variety of multimedia methods to explore their mobility
though the neighbourhood and examine their situated and embodied knowledge through creative
practices. Their stories were then (re)told through an exhibition involving photos, posters, video, panel
talks as well as an interactive exhibit where audience members could contribute their own ideas. Such
an example illustrates how Co-Creative practice can generate affective imaginaries through creative
processes, the outcomes of which can then be shared with others through embodied practice.

Outcomes from Co-Creation can take various forms, responding to the call for Co-Creative
dissemination. They may materialise in the form of scholarly research papers, presentations or other
similar paradigmatic forms of knowledge. But they can also take shape in embedded and embodied
forms of knowledge, including artworks that remain in the urban setting under study (such as in
Chapter 16), poetry performance (Chapter 17), or more intangible forms of outcomes, such as the
inter-personal connections and networks created, and the empowerment of participants as in the case
of the Street Beats Band (Chapter 11). One fundamental thread running through these outcomes is
the question of accountability, and the justifications provided for the knowledge claims related to
these outcomes, in representing the lives and perspectives of others. For this reason, dissemination

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that is Co-Created is key since it allows participants to tell their own story through appropriate media
that exposes their knowledge in authentic, powerful ways.

Space and place

The issue of space and place intervenes at various levels in the book. Several chapters investigate
whether the neighbourhood is the most appropriate scale for Co-Creation interventions, or whether
Co-Creating on wider, municipal, metropolitan, national or even international scales, is possible and
desirable. While many authors explore Co-Creation at the neighbourhood level (Chapters 4, 6, 13, 17),
some look beyond the neighbourhood to a wider grouping of municipalities (Chapter 9), or to the
metropolitan level (Chapter 14). The chapters illustrate that the appropriate scale is that which is
responsive to the context in which it is designed. In some cases, as shown in Chapter 10 through the
example of literary festivals, itinerant events creating their own, nomadic communities can become
alternatives to Co-Creation which can successfully address at least some, if not all, aims of Co-Creation.

Also relevant is the definition of a Co-Creation community, and whether it should be place-based or
not. The very process of Co-Creation, bringing participants together to share experiences and
knowledge, can create communities that did not exist previously, but who interact through embodied
actions to reveal forms of knowledge that coalesce around a shared experience and exchange (Chapter
11). Another issue is the role of space and the built environment in processes of Co-Creation (Chapter
7). Urban spaces intervene in the production and reproduction of social practices, and as such, can be
an important element in Co-Creation initiatives. Chapter 13 also illustrates this, with the Knowle West
Media Centre (KWMC) being a focus, a facility and a space for Co-Creation projects.

At the global level in relation to space and place, the labels North and South have also generated
discussion. Authors have not only concurred in saying that a binary North-South divide was artificial
(Chapters 2, 4, 5, 15), but they have also demonstrated that such labels were not always relevant and
masked more complex differences that were at times more marked than the North-South division.
This is not to diminish the important historical differences between different global regions, due to
colonisation and the enduring postcolonial hegemonic structures that persist today. But it is to
recognise that each country, city and neighbourhood is subject to different socioeconomic, political,
historical structures, which impact on the conditions of urban development experienced by local
communities.

Impact

The volume has also explored the possibility of measuring impact resulting from Co-Creation (Chapter
17). Beyond the difficulties involved in evidencing and quantifying change in participants’ behaviour,
this attempt was also confronted with questions about how to interpret creative outputs such as
artworks or artefacts and how to take into account emotions and subjective experiences which are
intrinsically linked with the process of knowledge production. Who is entitled to measure tangible
outcomes such as poems, music performances, murals, photovoice exercises, affective mapping and
collaborative video films as well as learning processes facilitated by their making and sharing? What is

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the purpose of evaluating the impact of creative projects on community wellbeing if not the desire to
justify resources dedicated to their production and convince funders of their usefulness, which leads
almost inevitably to their instrumentalisation and the denial of their value in themselves? These
questions have been touched on in this volume, but would warrant further detailed research, to
explore the impacts of Co-Creative projects in more depth, and to examine self-reflexively our own
positionality as researchers, artists and participants, in relation to the significance of the evaluation of
Co-Creation projects.

When and how to use?

Finally, the authors have also reflected on when to use Co-Creation as a strategy and how to overcome
difficulties that may arise throughout the process. From the chapters, it appears that Co-Creation is
potentially a lengthy process since it requires trust that can only be built over time. Moreover, since
the process is largely spontaneous, its outcomes are unpredictable to a certain extent. Given that top-
down approaches tend to be seen as hijacking the creative process and submitting it to a specific
agenda, the best-case scenario may be when communities reach out to researchers and artists, when
relationships between the participants are horizontal rather than vertical, when enough time and
resources are allocated for the processes without any external pressure (for instance from the
funders) to produce specific outcomes. However, given the current expectations from science, and
the structures of funding for creative projects through cultural institutions and academic research, the
likelihood of such a constellation is relatively low.

Several chapters have found, however, that Co-Creation was a particularly useful strategy in contexts
in which formal kinds of political agency were weak or non-existent. These include situations of
political re-organisation, uncertainty (Chapter 5), inequality and oppression (Chapters 3, 4 and 6) in
which regenerating a civic capacity allows participants to act as agents involved in the processes of
change. This is the case for instance in cities with significant inequalities where the dynamics of change
are strong and disruptive and multiplicities of different actors are involved in these processes. Co-
Creation in such situations and contexts then helps groups of researchers, inhabitants, artists and
other actors become consciously aware of their own individual and collective agency and collectively
produce forms of knowledge which recall past, present and future possibilities.

Recommendations

We conclude this volume with a series of recommendations, derived from the previous chapters that
consider Co-Creation as a process of generating shared understandings and dialogue through creative
approaches rather than a methodological toolkit that is applied mechanically regardless of the
context. These recommendations are therefore necessarily general, and participants of Co-Creation
initiatives are left to adapt them to their own needs.

According to the experience of the authors of this volume, to be successful, Co-Creation should
consider adopting the following principles:

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1. Identify issues that people genuinely care about, as a way to generate participation.

2. Open up new possibilities in terms of what can be imagined and what can be made and
allow participants to play leading roles in imagining, designing and building their futures.

3. Set overarching common goals around which people from different backgrounds can cluster.

4. Establish some ground rules to create safe spaces.

5. Encourage cooperative processes in which people with common interests can work together
non-hierarchically towards change they want to bring about, using their diverse skills and
experiences.

6. Identify inequalities between participants (linked to socioeconomic status, age, mobility,

North-South divide) and devise strategies (such as a process in which different skills are
acknowledged and valued) to balance power hierarchies.

7. Concentrate on broad and diverse changes that need to take place. Change may need to
happen involving many places, spaces and people, including the participants themselves.

8. Nurture intimate exchanges at a smaller scale to develop trust-based relationships and to

address hierarchical assumptions.

9. Broaden small-scale Co-Creation initiatives to engage with larger communities. This can be
achieved by working with young people and involving their families or by creating
opportunities that bring people together such as through exhibitions, collective paintings or
poetry readings, shared meals or parties.

10. Use creative approaches and arts methods to facilitate work across disciplines and power
structures, confront ideas on new grounds, express ideas and listen to each other differently,
disrupt habitual dynamics of power, express and take criticism.

11. Avoid colonising knowledges already in place. Use strategies like ‘political listening’ to
identify these knowledges and use ‘scientific’ research methods critically (for example by
relying on post-qualitative inquiry and decolonial theory) to balance the epistemologies of
the North with an increased focus on flows of affects and emotions.

12. Allow participants to contribute as little or as much as they wish at a pace that lets them move
flexibly from simple ways of contributing to more lengthy, complex and sophisticated ways.

13. Be prepared to cede control over some aspects of the Co-Creation project to other
participants.

14. Use comparative approaches to identify common problems and seek solutions on a wider
scale.

15. Close Co-Creation processes with an assessment of whether and how goals have been
achieved, and what has been learned.

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16. Involve participants in ‘telling the story’, by sharing insights, creating solutions to issues,
identifying opportunities and making changes to available infrastructure.

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Bios of contributors

Sue Brownill is a Reader in Urban Governance and Policy at the School of the Built Environment,
Oxford Brookes University. Her research focuses on the spaces of participation created through the
interaction of the state with urban social movements. She combines this with long-standing
experience of community-led planning and regeneration both as a practitioner and researcher. Recent
projects as well as her involvement with the Co-Creation project include research into neighbourhood
planning and localism in the UK and into participatory approaches to encouraging healthy urban
mobility in Brazil.

Juliet Carpenter is a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University, working at the interface of
debates within a range of disciplines, including geography, urban planning, political science and
sociology. From 2017 to 2020, Juliet held a three-year Marie Curie Global Fellowship, in collaboration
with the University of British Colombia, Vancouver, working on an international comparison of urban
regeneration and governance in the context of social sustainability. She has a particular interest in
exploring arts-based methods as a means of giving voice to marginalised communities in an urban
planning context.

Pamela Ileana Castro Suarez is an urban planner, holding an MSc in Property Development from the
National Autonomous University of Mexico and a PhD in Urban Design from Oxford Brookes
University. Since 2012 she has been a part-time professor at undergraduate and postgraduate levels,
having been a module teacher since 1993 and a casual lecturer at Oxford Brookes in 2006. She is
currently Head of the Undergraduate program of Urbanism (since 2013). Her main research fields are
urban design and morphology, property development, crime prevention through urban design, urban
instruments, healthy cities, education and Co-Creation.

Bryan C Clift is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department for Health at the University of Bath
and Director of the Qualitative Research Centre. His research is oriented around three foci: Sport and
physical activity in relation to issues of contemporary urbanism, popular cultural practices and
representations, and qualitative inquiry. These are inspired by the notable ways in which sport,
physical activity, and popular cultural practices contribute to examining the structure and experience
of contemporary social formations and issues. His work has recently been published in Body & Society,
Sociology of Sport Journal, Qualitative Inquiry, and Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies.

Joanne Davies is a PhD candidate in the Department of Education at the University of Bath. She holds
a BA Honours in French and Music from the University of Birmingham and a CELTA qualification from
the University of Cambridge in teaching English to speakers of other languages. Her PhD topic is the
geographical inequalities in access to elite universities and follows on from her previous work for the

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education charity, IntoUniversity, and King’s College London in the field of widening participation in
Higher Education.

Annaleise Depper is an engagement practitioner at the University of Oxford, where she supports
researchers to collaborate with public and community groups beyond academia. Annaleise previously
completed a PhD at the University of Bath, UK, in the Physical Culture, Sport and Health research
group. Her research explored young people’s experiences of embodied mobility and inequality in low-
income communities. Annaleise is particularly interested in using Co-Creative approaches to bring
together researchers, practitioners and communities to Co-Create solutions in response to everyday
challenges and inequalities.

Simone Fullagar, FAcSS, is an interdisciplinary sociologist who leads the Women in Sport research
group as Professor at Griffith University, Australia. Simone’s research uses feminist post-structuralist
and new materialist theory-methods to explore the gendering of health and emotional wellbeing, as
well as sport and leisure practices. Her latest book was published by Palgrave in 2019 - Feminism and
a Vital Politics of Depression and Recovery. Simone was previously Chair of the Physical Culture, Sport
and Health research group at the University of Bath, UK.

José Luis Gázquez Iglesias holds a PhD in International Relations and African Studies from the
Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. He completed his graduate studies at Sciences-Po in Paris,
France, and a postdoctoral internship at the Autonomous Metropolitan University Cuajimalpa,
Mexico. He has also conducted extensive fieldwork in several cities of Senegal and Europe and a
research internship at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar. He currently works as an Associate
Professor and Researcher on International Relations and African Studies at the National Autonomous
University of Mexico (UNAM). His main research topics are Sufi Islam, transnational migrations and
networks, state formation and construction processes in Sub-Saharan Africa and Senegal.

Inés Gortari is a graduate of the London School of Economics, where she studied Geography as an
undergraduate and Urbanisation and Development at postgraduate level. She moved to Rio to work
for Casa Fluminense where, as Institutional Development Advisor, she was responsible for the
organisation’s fundraising strategy and team management. Inés enjoys working directly with local
communities to improve people’s lives. She is passionate about youth development, education and
human rights and while living in Rio volunteered as a skateboard teacher and as a Spanish teacher.
She recently joined the Amani Institute (amaniinstitute.org), an international education and training
social enterprise, as a Social Innovation Management Fellow in Kenya.

Christina Horvath is Reader in French Literature and Politics at the University of Bath. Her research
addresses urban representations in literature and film, with emphasis on artistic expressions of
advanced marginality such as contemporary French ‘banlieue narratives’ and favela literature in Brazil.
She has published widely on contemporary French and Francophone literature, banlieues and

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postcolonial legacies in France. Since 2013, she has been working on the conceptualisation and testing
of ‘Co-Creation’ defined as an arts-based method to promote social justice in disadvantaged urban
areas.

As Arts Producer at Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC), Martha King has developed and delivered a
wide range of socially engaged, digital and contemporary arts projects, applying methods of co-
creation to explore topics such as data ethics, community-led housing and participatory sensing. She
co-authored ‘Artists, Data, and Agency in Smart Cities’ in ‘Big Data in the Arts and Humanities’ (2018)
with Roz Stewart-Hall and co-authored a CHI published paper 'A City in Common: A Framework to
Foster Technology Innovation from the Bottom up'. She is KWMC’s representative for the ‘Co-creating
Change’ network and is supporting a ‘Creative Civic Change’ project in Knowle West, 2019–21.

Melissa Mean is Head of Arts at Knowle West Media Centre. For over 15 years she has worked across
the arts, urbanism and public participation, and has led projects ranging from setting up a pop-up
factory to train local people to design and make furniture, to creating a living archive of tattoo culture.
She now leads We Can Make, a citizen-led housing programme. Melissa is also part of Redcliffe
Neighbourhood Forum, a community group working on a £100m project to reclaim a dual carriageway
in Bristol and create affordable housing and public space in its place.

Vitor Mihessen is Information Coordinator and co-founder of Casa Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro. He
researches socioeconomic indicators in the Rio Metropolitan Region and also designs and organises
capacity building activities, including Casa Fluminense’s Public Policies course. Vitor holds a Masters
in Economic Science and a specialisation in Public Policies and Governmental Management from
Universities in Rio. Vitor also studied comparative economic development at the Universidad de
Salamanca, Spain. His research interests revolve around urban mobility and its social and economic
interfaces. Vitor previously worked at several research and policy organisations in Rio and was chief
advisor to the Secretary of Economic Development in the State of Rio.

Niccolò Milanese is a director of European Alternatives, a transnational civil society organisation

which promotes democracy, equality and culture beyond the nation state, with offices in London,
Berlin, Rome and Paris where he lives. He is a Europe's Futures Fellow at the Institut für
Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna. His most recent books are Citizens of Nowhere: How Europe
Can be Saved from itself (Zed Books 2018) and Wir Heimatlosen Weltbürger (Suhrkamp 2019).

Oscar Natividad Puig is an MPhil candidate in Planning at Oxford Brookes University researching the
role of social network structures in participatory approaches. An architect and urban planner by
training, he has participated in development initiatives for vulnerable communities in South Africa,
Haiti, Chile, Nepal, and Panama. Before starting at Oxford Brookes, Oscar managed an asset-based

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community development project for CoLab MIT. His former education includes a degree in
Architecture at Universidad Politécnica de Valencia and a masters at Harvard. His research consistently
returns to the role and social responsibility of the designer to incorporate the voice of vulnerable
communities.

Eliana Osorio Saez is a PhD candidate in the Department of Education at the University of Bath. She
holds a BA in Teaching Spanish and English from Universidad Popular del Cesar and an MA in
Education: English Didactics from Universidad Externado de Colombia, both in Colombia. She also
holds an MA in Education: Leadership and Management from Bath Spa University in England. Her PhD
topic is the use of technology to support parental engagement in schools.

Dianell Pacheco Gordillo graduated from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM)
with a Bachelors in Political Science with a major in international cooperation, and a Masters in Public
Policies and Government. She has held various positions including member of the local electoral
representation in the Council of the National Electoral Institute, analyst at the Council for the
Evaluation of Social Development in Mexico City (EVALUA DF) and Research Assistant at the Faculty of
Social and Political Sciences in UNAM. She is currently the Technical Secretary of the H2020 Project
“The Cohesive City: Addressing Stigmatisation in Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods” (Co-Creation).

María José Pantoja Peschard graduated in Philosophy at the National Autonomous University of
Mexico (UNAM). She holds an MLitt in Philosophy from the University of St Andrews, and an MA in
Film Studies from the University of East Anglia. She obtained her PhD in Cultural Studies from
Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research interests are the relationships between political
philosophy, aesthetics and visual cultures. She is currently a full-time lecturer in the Department of
Media and Communications, in the School of Social and Political Sciences at UNAM in Mexico City.

Ségolène Pruvot is Cultural Director of European Alternatives. She was trained as a political scientist
and urban planner in France (Sciences-Po), the UK (LSE), and Germany (University of Leipzig). Ségolène
has published several articles related to urban planning and to gender equality in print and online. Her
latest publication is ‘Feminists Know How to Build Bridges’ in the volume ‘The Right to Truth’ (Kiev:
Visual Culture Research Centre, 2019) on Feminist Arts and Social Change. In the past 10 years,
Ségolène has investigated the transformative power of the arts in several research and activist
projects, such as TRANSEUROPA Festival. She has also collaborated with the URBACT European
Programme.

Hector Quiroz Rothe is an urban planner and historian from the National Autonomous University of
Mexico. He holds a PhD in Geography from the Université de Paris III. Since 2004 he has been a full-
time professor in the School of Urbanism and a member of the National Research System since 2006.

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His main research fields are contemporary history of Mexican cities, representations of the city in
cinema and Co-creation.

Leandro Rodrigues de Souza, known as ‘Tick’, is a graffiti artist, activist and cultural promoter working
in the favela of Tabajaras & Cabritos, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Originally from North-Eastern Brazil, he
grew up in Rio de Janeiro where he has been working as a graffiti artist since 2001. Since 2015 he has
been active in the project ‘Viva Bairro’, which aims to develop community-based tourism around
graffiti in Tabajaras. Tick has contributed to three international Co-Creation workshops (Santa Marta,
2018 and Tabajaras and Bath, 2019), several international graffiti events and hosted two large-scale
graffiti encounters, each bringing together over 35 artists.

Andrés Sandoval-Hernández is a Lecturer in Educational Research at the University of Bath. His

research interests include comparative analyses of educational systems using large-scale assessment
data with a focus on educational inequalities and civic education. He is part of different international
networks on these topics and is co-editor of ‘Teaching Tolerance in a Globalised World’ (Springer,
2018), which investigates the attitudes of secondary students towards minorities across 38 countries.

Jim Segers co-founded City Mine(d). His current interest lies with tough issues and with the tension
between individual capabilities and the need for collective action. He is currently active with City
Mine(d) in London on the role of personal competences in local development [in “Elephant Path” in
London’s Somers Town area] and in Brussels with the triple challenge facing the electricity sector of
fairer pricing, rethinking ageing infrastructure and reducing climate impact [in “La Pile” in Brussels’
Quartier Midi]. He holds a BA Hons in Politics, a BSc Hons in Econometrics and is trained as a theatre
director.

Itamar Silva is a journalist, researcher, and former director of the Brazilian Institute of Social and
Economic Analysis (IBASE) until April 2019. Currently, he is the president of the School Without Walls
Association, or Eco. Previously, he was a militant of the Rio de Janeiro Slum Movement, director of
FAFERJ, president of the Morro Santa Marta Residents Association. He is a member of the Rio 2004
Social Agenda, Terra do Futuro Network, and ActionAid Brasil. His work focuses on favelas, housing,
drug trafficking, and public safety.

Sarah Silva Telles is a Professor and researcher of the Post-Graduation Program in Social Sciences of
PUC-Rio. Her teaching and research expertise lie in sociology, particularly urban sociology focused on
themes of poverty, social inequality, social mobility, migration, favelas, working class families,
education and indigenous people in the city. Her current projects are about women and the life
trajectories of young black people. Her publications, all in Portuguese, include: an edited volume with
S. Luçan, Os Sociólogos; Viver na pobreza: Experiência e representações de moradores de uma favela

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carioca; and Clemente, Silva Telles, Sousa e Silva, and Brandão, Il genocidio nero continua? La lotta
continua.

Ben Spencer is a Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. He has a PhD in urban design and a
background in community development and lifelong learning. His research in the School of the Built
Environment is focussed on gerontology, mobility and developing healthy urban environments
through community engagement. Recent projects have included the award-winning cycle BOOM
research project on understanding older people’s cycling (www.cycleboom.org) and the Healthy
Urban Mobility research project (www.hum-mus.org) in partnership with colleagues from three
Universities in Brazil.

Roz Stewart-Hall is Head of Research and evaluation at the Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC),
Bristol. Her role involves supporting the KWMC team and people who participate in projects to reflect
on and evaluate their work, as well as reporting to funders. Roz has developed a set of tools and
mechanisms for generating evidence and data about the work and impact of KWMC. She has extensive
experience of research and evaluation and has worked in the field of socially engaged arts practice
since 1991. Roz uses action research approaches to evaluation and aims to embed ongoing reflection
into organisational practice and systems.

Karla Valverde Viesca is full-time Professor at the Political Studies Center in the Political and Social
Sciences Faculty, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM). She is member of the National
System of Researchers in Mexico and author of the book ‘Construcción institucional del desarrollo
social en México’ (2015). Karla is coordinator at UNAM of the Co-Creation Project ‘The Cohesive City:
Addressing Stigmatisation in Disadvantaged Urban Neighbourhoods’ and the Project ‘Vulnerabilidad
socioterritorial y proceso metropolitano en la región centro de México’. She is a member of the Global
Participatory Budget Research Board for the Participatory Budgeting Project.

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List of Figures

Figure 1.1 - Co-Creation principles

Figure 6.1 - Youth Organisation, Megan’s poster from the photovoice outing

Figure 7.1 - Examples of collaborative art projects in Mexico City

Figure 7.2 - Examples of art and cultural facilities in Mexico City

Figure 9.1 - Saint Denis, Plaine Commune and the Greater Paris Metropolis

Figure 9.2 - LA GRANDE RENCONTRE (The Big Encounter)

Figure 11.1 - Key contributors to the Street Beats Band Project

Figure 11.2 – The binners curating instruments

Figure 11.3 – The Street Beats Band performing

Figure 17.1 - Flow of participants through each stage of the evaluation

Figure 17.2 - Results for treatment and control groups concerning how often students raise current
political topics for discussion in class.

Figure 17.3 - Results for treatment and control groups concerning students feeling like they do not fit
in at school.

Figure 17.4 - Results for treatment and control groups concerning students’ fear of bullying at
school.

Figure 17.5 - Results for treatment and control groups concerning perceived self-efficacy in
organising fellow students to make changes at school

Figure 17.6 - Results for treatment and control groups concerning students’ desire to contribute to an
online forum discussing political and social issues.

List of Tables

Table 8.1 - Neighbourhood Improvement Community Programme: Number of projects approved

2007–17

Table 8.2 - Neighbourhood and Community Improvement Programme: Type of intervention in

community public spaces 2007–17

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Table 17.1 - Themes included in the questionnaire and issues identified in the school and community

Table 17.2 - Results for treatment and control groups concerning how often students raise current
political topics for discussion in class.

Table 17.3 - Results for treatment and control groups concerning students feeling like they do not fit
in at school.

Table 17.4 - Results for treatment and control groups concerning students’ fear of bullying at school.

Table 17.5 - Results for treatment and control groups concerning perceived self-efficacy in organising
fellow students to make changes at school

Table 17.6 - Results for treatment and control groups concerning students’ desire to contribute to an
online forum discussing political and social issues.

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234